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p1atdev

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japanese-stackexchange

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[ { "body": "That sentence basically boils down to `（私・あなた・someone）（は・が）...角を曲がります。`", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-03T14:25:44.007", "id": "5413", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-03T14:25:44.007", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "78", "parent_id": "5412", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 }, { "body": "This is related to a pattern with \"motion verbs\" in Japanese that are\nconsidered to be intransitive, but still use を to describe the area that the\nmotion goes through.\n\nFrom the first part of your example, この道を行って, the を in this case marks the\narea or thing through which the subjects 'goes', even though it's not a\ntransitive verb. Often this use of を can be described as \"along X\" or \"through\nX\", and often carries the implication of moving along or through either all or\na significant portion of the area described with を.\n\nThe same is true of 曲がります in your example, and it means something like \"turn\nthrough that corner\". Another example would be 飛行機が空を飛ぶ.\n\nが simply marks the subject of the sentence, the thing that is moving through\nthe corner or along the street, or through the sky. (I suspect your question\ntitle meant to reference を instead of が, however, given that your example\nsentence does not contain the particle が)", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-03T15:11:50.393", "id": "5414", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-03T15:17:21.243", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-03T15:17:21.243", "last_editor_user_id": "29", "owner_user_id": "29", "parent_id": "5412", "post_type": "answer", "score": 9 }, { "body": "The reason here is very simple.\n\nThe 角 is not what is doing/being 曲がる, 角 is simply the medium that the action\nis being preformed through.\n\nTake the following similar example, 電車{でんしゃ}が線路{せんろ}を走{はし}る.\n\nAs in my example, your sentence has the car/driver/etc doing the action, while\nthe conner, road, etc is what is being acted on.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-04T02:26:56.600", "id": "5421", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-04T02:26:56.600", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1129", "parent_id": "5412", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "Note that 赤いの (the/a red one(s)) also functions in place of nouns. 赤いのの...\nseems strange, but it parses, and it does express \"the ... of the red one\".\n\nどちらの車のドアが開けっ放しですか？ (Which car's door has been left open?)\n\nあの赤いののです。 (The one of the red one there.)\n\n”今のの” yields 5300,0000 (go sen, sanbyaku man) hits on Google.\n\nSo のの is not a ... no-no. :)", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-03T20:17:18.383", "id": "5416", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-03T20:38:22.473", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-03T20:38:22.473", "last_editor_user_id": "1266", "owner_user_id": "1266", "parent_id": "5415", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "This a is a simple case of omission.\n\nFor example you could say 私の本 and shorten that to 私の when 本 is obvious.\n\nLike wise you could say 私の本の１０ページ and shorten that to 私のの１０ページ.\n\nThe problem with cases like this is that it is often very hard for nonnative\nspeakers to identify what is considered obvious and what isn't.", "comment_count": 7, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-04T02:18:53.473", "id": "5420", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-04T02:18:53.473", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1129", "parent_id": "5415", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "きて is 来て. This is a helping verb which indicates a beginning or continuation\nof an action up to the present time.\n\nしまいました is the polite past tense of shimau, which indicates a completed action\n(sometimes with connotations that there are negative consequences, that it\nshould not have been done).\n\nIn informal speech V-て/で しまいました is V-て/で しまった which is contracted to ちゃった or\nじゃった respectively.\n\nFor instance \"tabeta\" is like \"ate\", but \"tabechatta\" is like \"ate\" in the\nsense of \"swallowed\": the focus is the completion of the action, not simply\neating having taken place in the past. In English, I suppose, we could use\n\"up\" for this: tabete-shimau (or tabechau) is something like \"eat up\".\n\nSo you would not say \"kinou no o hiru gohan, nani-o tabechatta\". This is\nalmost like asking \"what did you eat up for lunch yesterday\".\n\nThe exact nuance is context sensitive.\n\nA parent might say to another: \"Hora mite ano ko: zenbu tabechatta!\" (Look at\nthat kid, he gobbled up everything.)\n\nAs a command:\n\nOrdinary verb, nomu in the -de form: \"Nonde!\" (Drink!)\n\nWith -de-shimau becoming -de-shimatte becoming -jatte: \"Nonjatte!\" (Drink up!\nDrink it all!)", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-03T21:15:33.693", "id": "5418", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-03T21:47:22.483", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-03T21:47:22.483", "last_editor_user_id": "1266", "owner_user_id": "1266", "parent_id": "5417", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 }, { "body": "「きて」, from 「[来]{く}る」, indicates that it is a \"conclusion\" of sorts. 「しまう」\nindicates a completion, usually with a negative connotation. Taken together, a\nbetter translation for the sentence would be \"It has come to pass that I have\nleft your book in the car.\".", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-03T21:15:42.543", "id": "5419", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-03T21:15:42.543", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "22", "parent_id": "5417", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "When in doubt, as someone Japanese, or else search for the exact word or\nphrase to see if it appears in Japanese blogs, forum discussions, online\npublications or other material.\n\nThere are a million hits for 飲んでましょう, in quotes, and 0.8 million more for\n飲んでいましょう. So the evidence points to the answer that it is \"valid\" in the sense\nthat it is in reasonably wide use by the people.\n\nReading some of these, it is difficult to see if there is any difference in\nmeaning or distinguishing usage.\n\nYou would think that the progressive + volitional form would emphasize the\nongoing activity. Let's do this, and keep going: let's be doing this.\n\nThis is making me curious.\n\nA good pair to research may be 遊んで（い）ましょう vs. 遊びましょう. This would reveal if one\nis a preferred way to say \"let's play regularly\" versus \"let's play now\". I'm\nthinking that people would express this more often than \"let's drink all the\ntime\". :)\n\n* * *\n\nUpdate from asking Japanese speaker, shedding some additional light.\n\nThis progressive volitional is appropriate if the activity is already going\non. If people are already drinking (飲んでいる) then it makes for one of them to\nsay もっと飲んでいましょう (let's drink more; let's keep drinking).\n\nThis applies to －たい (want to do).\n\n今「遊んでいる」、だから ｢もっと遊んでたい。/もっと遊んでいましょう。」\n\n今「遊んでない」、だから ｢遊びたい。/遊びましょう。」", "comment_count": 8, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-05T03:41:23.117", "id": "5424", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-06T03:45:10.170", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-06T03:45:10.170", "last_editor_user_id": "1266", "owner_user_id": "1266", "parent_id": "5422", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "飲んでましょう is a colloquial form for 飲んでいましょう. In general, abbreviating ～ている to\n～てる is common in colloquial speech. Whether you count colloquial expressions\nas “legal” or not is up to you.\n\nNow what is the difference between 飲んで(い)ましょう and 飲みましょう? As I understand it,\nthe former implies that the suggested action of drinking is temporary.\n\nI think that 飲んで(い)ましょう is typically used in the following context. A group of\npeople decided to go out for a dinner (more precisely 飲み会, but I cannot\nexplain it well in English…). Most of them have arrived at a restaurant, but\nnot all of them. Then the organizer (幹事) says something like:\n\n> 山田さんがまだ来てないけど、先に飲んでましょう。 Mr. Yamada is not here yet, but let’s start\n> drinking.\n\nHere the organizer says 先に飲んで(い)ましょう instead of 先に飲みましょう because the situation\nof 先に飲む (drink before something, here drink before Mr. Yamada comes) is\nsupposed to be temporary, because people expect that Mr. Yamada will arrive\nsoon.", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-10T01:47:36.327", "id": "5460", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-10T01:47:36.327", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "15", "parent_id": "5422", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 } ]

[ { "body": "This is the tagline of\n[[大]{たい}[成]{せい}[建]{けん}[設]{せつ}](http://www.taisei.co.jp/) (see also [cute\nCM](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=OKoCl-3E0Vw)), a\nconstruction company and presumably the one carrying out the work there.\n\nThe meaning is as you say, \"Work that remains on the map\". This probably makes\nmore sense now.\n\n(As Flaw says, indicating a company philosophy of building stuff that makes a\nmark, and building it to last)", "comment_count": 5, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-05T14:25:53.600", "id": "5428", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-05T14:31:59.613", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-05T14:31:59.613", "last_editor_user_id": "1272", "owner_user_id": "1272", "parent_id": "5427", "post_type": "answer", "score": 11 }, { "body": "The generally available geographical map. Google Maps. Local maps. And so on.\n\nThe slogan says their work remains on the map -- it is work on a scale that is\nrecorded by cartographers and becomes part of the landscape. Important work\nhaving (future) historical and wide-area significance.\n\nPossibly the English nuance of \"remain\" might throw you here -- it seems to\nimply that it was on a map before and it will remain being on a map.\n\nThe actual message, I feel, is closer to this: after the work is finished in\nreal life, it is not forgotten, but remains (残るs), leaves its mark, on the\nmap.", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-05T14:34:35.557", "id": "5429", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-05T14:34:35.557", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "315", "parent_id": "5427", "post_type": "answer", "score": 10 } ]

[ { "body": "直し方 is a noun meaning \"way to fix\", or \"method of fixing\".\n\nThe usage of の here is possessive:\n\n> `A` の `B` \n> The `B` of (or belonging to) `A`\n\nSo the translation works as follows:\n\n> この | テレビ | の | 直し方 | わかります | か \n> This | TV | 's | way to fix | (you) know | ?", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-05T18:18:14.857", "id": "5431", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-05T18:36:22.510", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-05T18:36:22.510", "last_editor_user_id": "1272", "owner_user_id": "1272", "parent_id": "5430", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 }, { "body": "It is the most common usage of -no: genitive. It connects the two noun\nphrases: 1) kono terebi and 2) naosikata. Yes, naosikata is a noun, not a verb\nwhich I suspect is your confusion.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-05T18:18:35.797", "id": "5432", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-05T18:18:35.797", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1141", "parent_id": "5430", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "As far as I know,\n[`写{うつ}す`](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?p=%E5%86%99%E3%81%99&stype=0&dtype=3)\nis generally used for \"copy (homework/data etc)\"/\"take a photo\", and\n[`映{うつ}す`](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?p=%E6%98%A0%E3%81%99&enc=UTF-8&stype=0&dtype=3)\nis generally used for \"reflect/project\", but that `うつす` can mean \"copy\" with\nthe right Kanji.\n\nAlso note a third way of writing with\n[`移{うつ}す`](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8&p=%E3%81%86%E3%81%A4%E3%81%99&dtype=3&dname=2na&stype=0&pagenum=1&index=00372700),\nwhich means \"move/remove/transfer\" etc.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-06T06:54:23.083", "id": "5434", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-06T07:08:14.673", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-06T07:08:14.673", "last_editor_user_id": "796", "owner_user_id": "796", "parent_id": "5433", "post_type": "answer", "score": 10 } ]

[ { "body": "The meaning of 掛ける in that context can be thought of as \"to burden\".\n\nOf course the English translation then looks like it should be \"Sorry to\nburden you with trouble/nuisance\", which isn't natural in English. It works in\nJapanese though, and strengthens the feeling of inconvenience.\n\nNote that 掛ける is one of those words that doesn't really have a single\nrepresentative English equivalent. In fact, EDICT lists no less than\n[23](http://jisho.org/words?jap=%E6%8E%9B%E3%81%91%E3%82%8B&eng=&dict=edict)\npotential English translations.\n\nIf I **had** to give a more general description of the word used **in this\nkind of context** , I'd say you might like to think of it as describing an\naction/effect being inflicted or imposed on someone/something. But please use\nthis with caution, as it's not always right.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-06T16:33:32.013", "id": "5436", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-06T17:32:30.533", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-06T17:32:30.533", "last_editor_user_id": "1272", "owner_user_id": "1272", "parent_id": "5435", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "(This is not a full answer but I think too long for a comment):\n\nThere appears to be a paper that would cover this more fully.\n\n> 多義動詞「かける」と「かかる」の意味拡張に関する一考察 - 仙崎 幸子 (A discussion of the expansion of\n> meanings of the polysemous verbs kakeru and kakaru)\n\nHowever, as far as I can tell this is not anywhere online and you'd have to go\nfish it out of a library somewhere.\n\nThere is some info at\n[this](http://www.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/nichigen/0-kyouiku/seminar/pdf/029-1.pdf)\n(pdf) study into cases such as why かける was/is used over other possible verbs\nin cases like 電話をかける. They used corpora such as 青空文庫{あおぞらぶんこ} to look at verb\nusage for machinery/appliances - there's also some stuff on つける and a\ncomparison chart of which nouns were used with かける・つける.\n\nFor 電話を~ they found no usage of anything other than かける, suggesting that this\nhad been the case from pretty much the introduction of the telephone. They\nconsidered the possiblity that this was partly because early telephones were\nprimarily wall-mounted (壁掛け{かべかけ}) but found that 受話器{じゅわき}をかける was actually\nbeing used to refer to hanging up the phone. Therefore, this meaning probably\ndidn't come from the idea of \"hanging\" something, like on a wall, as with some\nuses of かける, but from 声をかける instead.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-06-21T18:30:33.897", "id": "5941", "last_activity_date": "2012-06-21T18:30:33.897", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "571", "parent_id": "5437", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 } ]

[ { "body": "As ジョン says, the similarities are very strong between もはや and もう.\n\nThe meaning is that something has now reached a certain state, leaving its\npast state behind. This can imply that the change is irreversible.\n\n彼はもはや犯罪者だ。 He's a criminal now. (he's now reached that point, and there is no\nturning back from it.)\n\n彼はもう社長です。 He's a company president now. (cast away any thoughts you might have\nhad of him as a lower-paid employee -- that is no longer true)\n\nもはやXと言っていい means that it is, **by now** , OK to call it X (probably: there's\nnow enough evidence/reason to support the statement), and this is the new\nirreversible state -- we're casting off the old state of not calling it X.\n\nThis corresponds to 大辞泉's second sense of もはや:\n\n> ２ ある事態が **変えられないところ** まで進んでいるさま。今となっては。もう。「―如何ともしがたい」「―これまで」\n\nI don't see any context/reason to interpret it as \"actually\" or \"or rather\".", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-06T21:03:39.007", "id": "5439", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-06T21:03:39.007", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "315", "parent_id": "5438", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 } ]

[ { "body": "This is obviously a contraction of 寝てると. Not sure if this pertains to certain\ndialects/age groups etc. though. Haven't heard this one myself in real life.", "comment_count": 6, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-07T01:57:14.657", "id": "5442", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-07T01:57:14.657", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1073", "parent_id": "5440", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 }, { "body": "The ーと in this sentence relates two parts as a consequence, but also gives an\nadmonishment: I.e. this character is effectively saying: \"You shouldn't sleep\nin such a place or you will catch a cold, you know!\".\n\n(Contrast this with ーば (as in こんなとこで寝れば...）which would just states the\nfact/opinion plainly: \"if you sleep in such a place, you will catch a cold.\")\n\nThe \"tto\" contraction used here is emphatic, or possibly male speech. Or both.\nIt strengthens the statement, as if the character is saying, \"you really\nshouldn't sleep here.\"\n\nIt is a phonetic feature of Japanese that changes toward stopped consonants\nare emphatic. For instance consider：\n\n> やはり→やっぱり\n>\n> 「。。。」と → 「。。。」って\n>\n> とても → とっても", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-11T23:47:04.233", "id": "5476", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-11T23:47:04.233", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T08:18:27.500", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "1266", "parent_id": "5440", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "I thought a few examples would be nice to get a feeling of when and how to use\n\"~に伴い\" so here they are:\n\n1) (taken from\n[here](http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E5%AE%8C%E5%85%A8%E3%83%9E%E3%82%B9%E3%82%BF%E3%83%BC2%E7%B4%9A-%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E8%AA%9E%E8%83%BD%E5%8A%9B%E8%A9%A6%E9%A8%93%E6%96%87%E6%B3%95%E5%95%8F%E9%A1%8C%E5%AF%BE%E7%AD%96-%E3%82%A2%E3%82%B8%E3%82%A2%E5%AD%A6%E7%94%9F%E6%96%87%E5%8C%96%E5%8D%94%E4%BC%9A%E7%95%99%E5%AD%A6%E7%94%9F%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E8%AA%9E%E3%82%B3%E3%83%BC%E3%82%B9/dp/4883190889/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1337015282&sr=8-2),\npage 6):\n\n円高に伴い、来日する外国人旅行者が少なくなった。\n\nBecause of the strength of the yen the number of foreigners visiting Japan has\ndecreased.\n\n2) (taken from\n[here](http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E8%AA%9E%E7%B7%8F%E3%81%BE%E3%81%A8%E3%82%81%E5%95%8F%E9%A1%8C%E9%9B%86-2%E7%B4%9A%E6%96%87%E6%B3%95%E7%B7%A8-%E4%BD%90%E3%80%85%E6%9C%A8-%E4%BB%81%E5%AD%90/dp/4872176154/ref=sr_1_fkmr3_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337015900&sr=8-1-fkmr3)、page\n54):\n\n人口の増加に伴い、資源の消費量も増える。\n\nAs the population increases so does the consumption of natural resources. (In\nthe book they translated it as \"...of resources also increased.\" but I think\nthat's slightly off.)", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-14T17:24:51.903", "id": "5516", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-14T17:24:51.903", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "388", "parent_id": "5443", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "`それに伴い` is a more formal way of saying `それに伴って`. Changing て-form into 連用形 is\nvery common in formal Japanese.\n\n伴う is used to show strong forward correlation, so `それに伴い` would be translated\nas `Along with that, ….`", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-25T07:42:46.887", "id": "5629", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-25T07:42:46.887", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "356", "parent_id": "5443", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "There is no general rule. It depends on the compound in which the kanji\nappears. Sometimes even compounds have two readings.\n\nJapanese people themselves (literate ones, that is) sometimes don't know how\nto read a personal name or place name.\n\nYou cannot pick just any onyomi. For instance 上 in 上手 (jouzu) must be じょう, and\nin 上海 (Shanhai: the Chinese city Shangai) it must be しゃん. \"Shanzu\" or \"jouhai\"\ndoesn't make sense.\n\nYou have to recognize the compound as a word.", "comment_count": 5, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-07T21:47:06.177", "id": "5445", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-08T17:03:22.180", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-08T17:03:22.180", "last_editor_user_id": "1266", "owner_user_id": "1266", "parent_id": "5444", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 }, { "body": "Occasionally (I'm not sure how common it is) there are kanji for which the\ndifferent on-readings relate to different sets of meanings.\n\nAn example is 日; in a Japanese kanji dictionary it is shown that the reading\nニチ can be used for compounds in which 日 means Japan/Japanese (e.g. 日系、来日). The\nreading ジツ isn't used for those compounds.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-08T15:50:17.153", "id": "5452", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-08T15:50:17.153", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "571", "parent_id": "5444", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "The general rule is to use go-on for buddist terms, kan-on for academic terms,\nand so-on/too-on for zen-buddism or business terms.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-11T16:42:56.740", "id": "5473", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-11T16:42:56.740", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "5444", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "This is a double negation. It is a way of saying \"する\" with less certainty.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-08T02:46:43.883", "id": "5447", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-08T02:46:43.883", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "903", "parent_id": "5446", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "In\n[goo](http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/jn2/50132/m1u/%E6%B0%97%E3%82%92%E9%81%A3%E3%81%86/),\nwhich uses source from \"デジタル大辞泉\", and dic.yahoo.co.jp, which uses sources from\nboth\n[大辞泉](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8&p=%E6%B0%97%E3%82%92%E9%81%A3%E3%81%86&dtype=0&dname=0na&stype=0)\nand\n[大辞林](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8&p=%E6%B0%97%E3%82%92%E9%81%A3%E3%81%86&dtype=0&dname=0ss&stype=0),\nonly \"気を遣う\" is listed.\n\nI guess that the \"気を使う\" is only an alternative form of \"気を遣う\", maybe because\nthat it is more easy to write, or \"使う\" is used more often than \"遣う\" (or maybe\nonly a common typo?).", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-08T12:05:24.957", "id": "5451", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-08T12:05:24.957", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "903", "parent_id": "5448", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "Generally people don't make a distinction, but technically, 使う and 遣う have\nslightly different nuances. 使う just means \"to use\" whereas the 漢字 for 遣う is\nalso seen in 遣る(やる), like in words such as 思いやり. So, 気を使う is to use ones 気,\n(closer to \"pay attention\") and 気を遣う is more to \"direct\" ones 気 to somebody\nelse (have concern for somebody). The reason 気を遣う is more common is because it\nemphasizes the act of having concern for others more.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-09T03:46:51.103", "id": "5453", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-09T03:46:51.103", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1217", "parent_id": "5448", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "ari-ki is the verb ar- \"be, are\" plus the recollectional past suffix -ki. The\nrecollectional sense is all but lost and is essentially just a past tense now.\n-ki is not used much in modern Japanese except for fossilized patterns such as\nariki and omoiki ya. ariki means that something was there; essentially atta.\n\nYour examples:\n\n * mazu wa keturon ariki: This means that there was a conclusion from the beginning. This could be ironic since usually a conclusion is reached upon analysis and debate.\n * hazime ni kotoba ariki: This is a quotation from the bible. In the beginning, there was word. (Modern Japanese: hazime ni kotoba atta)\n * gōkaku wa douryoku ariki: Success is due to effort. The effort was done in the past and lead to the success.\n\nAnother example: There is place that I pass everyday in Shibuya that says\n\"恋文横丁此処にありき\": Here was Koibumi street. I do not know the historical\nsignificance, but this koibumi yokochō could be \"Lovers' Lane\".", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-08T11:45:18.073", "id": "5450", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-08T12:31:25.663", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-08T12:31:25.663", "last_editor_user_id": "1141", "owner_user_id": "1141", "parent_id": "5449", "post_type": "answer", "score": 11 } ]

[ { "body": "Looool... Yeah we might say 鼻(or鼻水)をすする or maybe 鼻水を吸い込む(yuck!), and more like\n(鼻を)ズルズルさせる/言わせる(which sounds more 'wet', yuck!) than グズグズさせる/言わせる in this\ncase... I might say 'きったないなあ(or気持ち悪いなあ)、もう。鼻、かんできてよ！' to suggest someone go\nblow his nose in the bathroom or somewhere but this might sound too\nimpolite/blunt, so probably you could say like, 'あの、すいませんが、鼻かんでもらえませんか？'", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-09T06:21:42.313", "id": "5456", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-09T06:40:14.817", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-09T06:40:14.817", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "5454", "post_type": "answer", "score": 11 } ]

[ { "body": "This is one example of the common pattern: V1 + ni + V2. Both V1 and V2 are\nthe same verb; however, V1 in in 連用形 (adverbial, conjunctive form)*. It\nexpresses emphasis or that an event continued for a long time. You may\ngenerally remove the (V1 + ni) portion without loosing much of the semantic\nmeaning. A much more common example is 待ちに待った.\n\n*連用形: The form of the verb that -masu attaches to. yom-u --> yomi(masu), tabe-ru --> tabe(masu) This should really go into a FAQ.", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-09T12:44:23.073", "id": "5457", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-09T12:44:23.073", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1141", "parent_id": "5455", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "An attempt to answer your question about how the two sentences are different:\n\n遅くて means something like \"because it's late\" and doesn't make much sense in\nthe sentence.\n\n遅く might make more sense semantically, but doesn't seem to put enough emphasis\non the being late \"Long ago, humans become conscious of their age late\". The\n\"late\" doesn't quite know what it wants (Sorry, can't explain this much\nbetter).\n\n遅れに遅れて tries to capture the sense of \"finally\" or \"after much delay\" and\ntherefore implies that man should have become conscious about his age earlier.\n\"Long ago, humans finally become conscious of their age\".\n\nIt would be easier to be certain if I had more context for your sentence.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-10T00:44:28.553", "id": "5459", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-10T00:44:28.553", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1073", "parent_id": "5455", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "My apologies if someone already noticed this, but I believe the actual\nsentence was:\n\n> 「人間は **皆** 、遅れに遅れて自らの年を自覚する。」\n\nThat would explain why people got confused over 昔. I just came across the same\nunknown phrase in 短期マスター日本語能力試験ドリルN1.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2012-10-06T16:17:56.410", "id": "7055", "last_activity_date": "2019-03-20T11:37:05.603", "last_edit_date": "2019-03-20T11:37:05.603", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1776", "parent_id": "5455", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "I think they can be just called タオル. I never heard other ways to refer to that\nwhen I was in Japan.\n\nHowever, to make sure, I check\n[amazon](http://www.amazon.co.jp/s/ref=sr_ex_n_1?rh=k%3a%E3%82%BF%E3%82%AA%E3%83%AB,n:3828871&bbn=3828871&keywords=%E3%82%BF%E3%82%AA%E3%83%AB&ie=UTF8&qid=1336653070),\nwhich I usually do when I'm not sure the name of something in everyday lift.\nIn the link, you can find in \"categories\"(カテゴリー, on the left side): バスタオル,\nフェイスタオル, ハンドタオル, or just タオル. So I think they can all just be called タオル. The\nlarge towels used in onsen can also be called バスタオル, if it is to be\ndistinguished with other kinds of towels.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-10T12:44:01.650", "id": "5463", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-10T12:44:01.650", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "903", "parent_id": "5462", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Towels were introduced in the Meiji era and were almost exclusively imported\nfrom England. That's why the word タオル came from English, and there is no other\nword for them (although Japan of course had their own fabrics before that (I'm\nspecifically talking about terrycloth)).", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-10T21:05:42.633", "id": "5466", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-10T22:04:32.363", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-10T22:04:32.363", "last_editor_user_id": "91", "owner_user_id": "1217", "parent_id": "5462", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "There's a word [手拭{てぬぐい}](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%89%8B%E6%8B%AD),\nwhich literally means hand-wipe.\n\nFrom the Wikipedia article, I gather that this was mainly used in place of the\ncurrent \"小さいタオル\", i.e. to wash yourself in the bath, or to dry your face or\nhands. I wasn't able to solve the mystery of how people dried their _bodies_\nafter bathing pre-Meiji.\n\nNow, I think people would use タオル for anything, at least if it's made of towel\ncloth, and only 手拭 to stress the fact that something is made of traditional or\nnon-towel cloth.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-11T01:00:18.903", "id": "5467", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-11T01:00:18.903", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1073", "parent_id": "5462", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "Your sentence basically means \"It's because I have no will/desire to go back\ninside yet.\" The `から` is just stating that the preceding clause is a/the\nreason for some action/behaviour/etc. However, due to your post, we don't know\nwhat that is.\n\nAn example might be the following:\n\n> しょう君、なぜこの３時間ずっと外で遊んでいるの？ → Hey Sho, why have you been playing outside for 3\n> hours? \n> まだまだ中に戻る気はありませんからね。 → Because I don't want to go back inside yet, ね。", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-10T16:33:13.543", "id": "5465", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-10T16:33:13.543", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "78", "parent_id": "5464", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "丸い generally refers to spherical objects like a globe.\n\n円い generally refers to circular objects like a circle drawn on a page. Perhaps\nalso a physical object which is flat and round in shape (a 円 (yen) coin for\nexample)", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-11T01:18:34.200", "id": "5469", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-11T01:18:34.200", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1272", "parent_id": "5468", "post_type": "answer", "score": 27 }, { "body": "円 is usually read えん, and reading it まる sounds like ateji, and is less common.\n丸い should be used.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-11T16:53:43.513", "id": "5475", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-11T16:53:43.513", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "5468", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "お早うございます、\n\nSince you are saying \"I am the best\" and that statement alone carries a bit of\nego/arrogance/boast of confidence etc. I would think you'd want to use 俺, 私\nsounds neutral/formal. And for the particle, you'd use が since you are\npointing out that \"I\" am the best and none other.\n\nFor your second question, both mean relatively the same thing. Though, 一番 is\nmore like, the best, the first (in a series of things or events that can be\nranked). 最高 takes a meaning of \"the most, the highest, the greatest.\"\n\nSo it just depends on what tone you want to set with your statement.\n\nI hope that helps.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-11T14:56:10.353", "id": "5471", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-11T14:56:10.353", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1068", "parent_id": "5470", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "I think that when you use 最高 for a person, it does not mean \"best\", but means\n\"very good\". That is why it is awkward to use が as in 俺が最高. 一番 retains the\nmeaning \"best\".", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-11T16:49:02.537", "id": "5474", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-11T16:49:02.537", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "5470", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "(The question was already essentially answered in comments by Chocolate and\nme, but I am posting an answer as an answer.)\n\nTo answer the question literally, 試験に受かる (to pass an examination) is\ngrammatical, but 試験が受かる is not grammatical, as Chocolate stated in her\ncomment.\n\nBut a more interesting part comes from your logic based on which you thought\nthat 試験が受かる would be grammatical in the first place. Although your logic was\nunclear to me until I read your comment in response to Chocolate’s comment,\nonce I understood the logic, it perfectly made sense.\n\nYour logic: The event ドアを閉める can be described from a different perspective by\nsaying ドアが閉まる. Similarly, it must be possible to restate 試験を受ける as 試験が受かる (*).\nBut there is also an expression 試験 **に** 受かる. What is the difference between\n試験が受かる and 試験に受かる?\n\nAlas, the sentence marked with (*) above is false! 受ける and 受かる may look like a\ntransitive-intransitive pair just like 閉める and 閉まる, but they are actually not,\nand we cannot restate 試験を受ける as 試験が受かる. Also note that 試験を受ける (to _take_ an\nexamination) and 試験に受かる (to _pass_ an examination) describe different events,\nand in both cases, the subject is the person who takes/passes an examination.\n\nThe only other “false” transitive-intransitive pair like 受ける and 受かる that I\ncan think of is 分ける (to divide) and 分かる (to understand; often written as わかる).\nThe correct transitive-intransitive pair is 分ける and 分かれる.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-06-01T23:39:05.993", "id": "5718", "last_activity_date": "2012-06-01T23:39:05.993", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "15", "parent_id": "5472", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "It is false. ありがとう came from adjective ありがたい, which was ありがたし in classical\nJapanese and dates back much earlier than any loanwords from Portuguese\nappeared in Japanese.\n\nWord ありがたし appeared in [Makura no\nSōshi](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pillow_Book) (1002), although I hope\nthat someone with access to large dictionaries can post earlier references.\nLoanwords from Portuguese in Japanese started appearing in the 16th century.\n\n_See also the comment to this answer by Dono. Honestly speaking, I think that\nit is better than this answer._", "comment_count": 5, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-12T21:59:45.020", "id": "5481", "last_activity_date": "2015-09-10T20:11:16.523", "last_edit_date": "2015-09-10T20:11:16.523", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "15", "parent_id": "5480", "post_type": "answer", "score": 41 } ]

[ { "body": "> What's the best way to approach this?\n\nAsk someone who is fluent in Japanese to help you out. Another problem people\nrun into is when the name they want to use is already in use. A good example\nis the company Logitech (the computer accessory maker). In Japan they are\nknown as Logicool because [another company](http://www.logitec.co.jp/) that\nwas already in Japan had a similar name.\n\n> Also how can you check that you haven't accidentally translated your company\n> name into an obscenity?\n\nSame as above, to verify your name is okay, you need to ask someone who\nunderstands Japanese well. Another common problem is when you use Katakana, it\ncan mean different things, for example, パドル could also be translated back into\nEnglish as \"paddle\", so it might be best to leave the title in English, or\nthink of a different name.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-13T21:19:00.350", "id": "5495", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-13T23:33:41.763", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-13T23:33:41.763", "last_editor_user_id": "1217", "owner_user_id": "1217", "parent_id": "5482", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "Not entirely sure about this, but from the different examples I've seen,\n`やかましい` seems to be more subjective, based on one's opinion or feelings,\nwhereas `そうぞうしい` seems to be more objective and/or neutral.\n\nCan't type Japanese on the computer I'm using right now, so I'll have to add\nexamples later.\n\n* * *\n\n### やかましい\n\n> 隣の人が **やかましくて** よく眠れなかった → My neighbours were making such a racket that I\n> couldn't sleep well. \n> **やかましい** 社会問題 → A much-discussed social problem\n\n### 騒々しい\n\n> **騒々しくて** 彼の声が聞こえなかった → We could not hear him because of all the noise.", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-13T01:53:30.640", "id": "5485", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-18T14:42:20.467", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-18T14:42:20.467", "last_editor_user_id": "78", "owner_user_id": "78", "parent_id": "5484", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "Yes, and 連載 is an action noun or a する verb, while 順次 basically works as an\nadverb.", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-13T06:03:15.770", "id": "5488", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-13T06:23:38.347", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-13T06:23:38.347", "last_editor_user_id": "1119", "owner_user_id": "1119", "parent_id": "5487", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "I am not sure what you are really looking for. We say 朝6時, 夕方6時, 夜9時, 午前6時,\n午後6時, 今月4日, 来年4月, and so on. If you want grammatical analysis, they may be\nconsidered as compound nouns, but I am not sure if understanding them as\ncompound nouns helps you understand these expressions any better.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-13T11:48:58.540", "id": "5490", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-13T11:48:58.540", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "15", "parent_id": "5489", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "~なきゃ is a contraction of ~なければ. なきや could be a typo or unusual spelling of\nthis.\n\n~なければならない makes a verb imperative, for example\n\n> 行かなければならない \n> (I) must go\n\nThe ならない is often informally omitted.\n\nIn the case of your example sentence the verb is [頑張]{がんば}る, becoming 頑張らなきゃ\nto give the meaning \"I must do my best\"", "comment_count": 5, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-13T13:03:23.760", "id": "5492", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-13T13:03:23.760", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1272", "parent_id": "5491", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "両〜 is a prefix meaning \"both\". In this case \"both prefectures\".\n\n[Here](http://jisho.org/words?jap=%E4%B8%A1&eng=&dict=edict) are some other\nexamples of its usage, from EDICT via jisho.org.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-13T13:21:48.777", "id": "5494", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-13T13:21:48.777", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1272", "parent_id": "5493", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 } ]

[ { "body": "ありがとう is the shortened form of\n\n> ありがたくございます\n\nor\n\n> ありがたく存じます\n\nありがとうございます actually consists of two words ありがとう and ございます. Perhaps you think\nit's an adjective because ありがたい is an adjective. However, ありがとう comes from\nありがたく. It might be easier to understand in this form: ~を(ありがとう)存じます. As you\ncan see the を is there because of the verb 存じます.", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-13T23:12:50.557", "id": "5498", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-13T23:12:50.557", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1217", "parent_id": "5496", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "I think your example is simply omitting a word (a proper verb after を, that\nis).\n\n> メッセージ／メール を （くれて） ありがとうございます。\n\nWhich would mean this is basically like saying:\n\n> メッセージ／メール を くれて うれしいです。\n\n...ありがとうございます being essentially equivalent to ありがとうです. Of course, normally you\ndon't say メッセージ／メール を うれしいです。, omitting the verb, but I think ありがとう is just so\ncommon that it might have become an exception.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-14T00:49:17.083", "id": "5501", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-14T00:49:17.083", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1365", "parent_id": "5496", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "I think (I'm not a native speaker!) that\n\n 1. `~てきた` has more than one way you can use it. \n\na) What you talk about is something you've not planned:\n\n> やっと春がやってきた \n> 'Finally, spring has come.'\n>\n> 熊ちゃんが出てくるアニメが増えてきた。 \n> 'Anime with Teddy bears in them have increased in number.'\n\nb) Refer to an action that carries on til the time of speaking:\n\n> 宿題をしてきた。/宿題を忘れて来た。 \n> `I've done/forgotten my homework.' (What you'd say to your teacher in\n> class.)\n\n2.On the other hand, `~ようになる` is what you say when the result you're referring\nto was planned and desired, for example:\n\n> 泳げるようになった！ \n> '(Yeah,) I can swim!' (after practicing it for a long time)\n\nHope this helps and hope native speaker will correct me if I said anything\nwrong.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-14T16:51:43.050", "id": "5515", "last_activity_date": "2012-06-26T14:28:22.387", "last_edit_date": "2012-06-26T14:28:22.387", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "388", "parent_id": "5499", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "It depends on the _aspectuality_ (or more specifically, _telicity_ ) of the\npredicate.\n\n * With _telic_ predicates like `現れる, 染まる`, the event described involves a change of state. There is a change within the event before and after this point. With such predicates, various forms have the meanings such as the following:\n\n> 現れている (perfect) \n> 現れてくる (gradually 現れる towards the point of view of the first person) \n> 現れていく (gradually 現れる apart from the point of view of the first person) \n> * 現れるようになる (ungrammatical)\n\n * With _atelic_ predicates like `使う, 走る, 食べる`, the event described does not involve a change of state, and is homogeneous throughout (unless there is a direct object indicating an endpoint such as `このボンベを使う, 100メートルを走る, おにぎりを一つ食べる`). With such predicates, various forms have the meanings such as the following:\n\n> 使っている (progressive) \n> 使ってくる (使う on the way or before coming) \n> 使っていく (使う on the way or before going) \n> 使うようになる (gradually/eventually come to 使う)\n\nThere is no fixed time period for `最近`. It depends on the context.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-06-26T15:06:05.367", "id": "5968", "last_activity_date": "2012-06-27T05:33:40.633", "last_edit_date": "2012-06-27T05:33:40.633", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "5499", "post_type": "answer", "score": 10 } ]

[ { "body": "In its original meaning,\n[擦れ違う](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8&p=%E3%81%99%E3%82%8C%E3%81%A1%E3%81%8C%E3%81%86&dtype=0&dname=0ss&stype=1&pagenum=1&index=110562400000)\n(also written as すれ違う) means to pass each other in opposite directions at such\na close distance that they almost touch. I do not think that it is correct to\nuse it when two things are moving in the same direction, although some people\nmay use it in this meaning.\n\nI do not think that 擦れ違う means “two people have different opinions.”\n\nThere are two figurative meanings. One is to come close to each other but fail\nto meet. The Daijirin dictionary shows an example 待ち合わせ時間に遅れて擦れ違う (to fail to\nmeet because of being late to the appointment). The other figurative meaning\nis for an argument to go crisscross. This meaning is close to what you wrote\nin the question but not the same because disagreement means that two people\nare talking about the same point, but going crisscross means that two people\nare talking about different points.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-14T01:49:38.660", "id": "5503", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-14T01:49:38.660", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "15", "parent_id": "5500", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "Version: バージョン (baajon) Build: ビルド (birudo)\n\nバージョン 1.0.0 ビルド 0\n\n(Source: I'm running Japanese Windows, and verified these guesses by looking\nin some About boxes for standard apps.)\n\nThe date 2012-05-13 can be displayed as 2012年5月13日. I wouldn't do that in\nthings like debugging log files for IT people.\n\nNumbers use a period as a decimal separator.\n\nHH:MM:SS time is used. But there are Japanese conventions. For instance a.m.\nand p.m. are 午前 (gozen) and 午後 (gogo). 午前7:00～午後8:00 means from 7 in the\nmorning to 8 at night (note wavy dash used for the range), and 7:00 in the\nmorning could appear as 午前7時 (gozen schichi ji) or even 朝７時 (asa shichi ji:\n\"morning seven o'clock\").\n\nSeparation of digits into groups of three is used, but I would say it is not a\ncultural concept in Japan.\n\nIn Japanese, the number 10,000 is significant (it is called 万, \"man\") as are\n1000 (千, \"sen\") and 100 (百, \"hyaku\"). . Large-ish quantities of money are\nsometimes quoted in 万円 (manen) which is comparable to a hundred dollars. The\nsquare of 10,000, one hundred million, also has a special name, 億 (oku). The\ncultural concept of \"one million bucks\" translates to \"oku man en\".\n\nThe average Japanese person doesn't think of numbers in terms of thousand,\nmillion, billion, but people in science, finance, engineering and such operate\nin the global information environment so they are probably more used to that.\n\nIn some kinds of programs, a \"deep\" conversion to Japanese might bring in\nthese concepts. For instance, a column of monetary figures might be labelled\n万円 and this would mean that 1.3 in that column understood to to be 13000 yen.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-14T02:03:37.643", "id": "5504", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-14T02:03:37.643", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1266", "parent_id": "5502", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 } ]

[ { "body": "I think (I'm not a native speaker) that\n\n * `窓が開いている` is a neutral statement of the fact; in English \"the window is open\".\n\n * `窓が開けてある` is saying that someone opened the window in preparation for something. Compare for example to `ビールが冷蔵庫に入れてあります`, meaning, in preparation for tonight you have put cans of beer into the fridge to get them cooled.\n\n * `窓が開けられた` is the past passive tense of `開ける` and is again neutral; in English \"the window has been opened\". \n\nAs for the other two examples you gave:\n\n * `...と書いてあります` means \"it is written that...\", so context matters: unlike above, `~てある` can also occur in a neutral sense, i.e. without doing something in preparation.\n\n * `と書かれた` is again the past passive tense of \"to write\", again in a neutral sense.\n\nHope this helps and hope native speakers will correct me if I said anything\nwrong.", "comment_count": 5, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-14T16:35:38.297", "id": "5514", "last_activity_date": "2012-06-26T15:20:34.227", "last_edit_date": "2012-06-26T15:20:34.227", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "388", "parent_id": "5505", "post_type": "answer", "score": 13 } ]

[ { "body": "> Were these forms prominently used at some point?\n\nYes, they were predominately used in writing up until the end of World War II.\nTechnically speaking, the movement to change the writing style to match the\nway people speak began in the early Meiji Era though. So, two writing styles\nexisted for a long period of time.\n\n> Why (and possibly, when) did their current forms (おそれる, ほめる, and 求める\n> respectively) become the \"standard\" and overtake the older forms?\n\nAfter World War II, the government adopted a policy to use modern contemporary\nJapanese primarily based on the colloquial language used in Tokyo for\nliterature.\n\n> Are they used in other ways in modern Japanese, or only in fixed\n> sayings/situations like these?\n\nThe only remnants of literary language in modern Japanese are in the fixed\nsayings you see in your examples.\n\n> Can you list any other verbs like this? (I know this part is a little open-\n> ended and thus is discouraged according to the site's acceptable questions,\n> but if you know any, and answer the other questions above, throw it in with\n> your answer)\n\nIf you search for \"文語形 動詞\", you should be able to find a bunch. Here is [a\nlink](http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/srch/jn/%E6%96%87%E8%AA%9E%E5%BD%A2/m3p60u/)\nthat lists a bunch from the dictionary.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-14T05:10:58.423", "id": "5507", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-14T05:17:12.007", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-14T05:17:12.007", "last_editor_user_id": "1217", "owner_user_id": "1217", "parent_id": "5506", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 }, { "body": "These are classical verb forms. To be precise, the ones you have cited are all\nexamples of the predicative form (終止形) of a -e/-u bigrade verb (下二段活用動詞). The\npredicative form became disused as early as the Muromachi period, and the\nmodern form with _-eru_ was predominant by the Edo period. (In fact, the\nspoken language of the Edo period is more or less where modern Japanese\nbegins.) In written Japanese, classical grammar persisted until\nvernacularisation (言文一致) became widespread.\n\nIt's worth noting that 〜べき itself is a classical form, so it makes sense that\nit is used together with other classical forms. Rather oddly, 〜べき is one of a\nhandful of auxiliaries which attach to the predicative form (except for r-stem\nirregular verbs (ラ行変格活用動詞) such as あり) in the traditional analysis. One\nexample of this you may not even have noticed is すべき, which comes from the\nverb す (→ する).", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-15T08:39:01.647", "id": "5523", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-15T08:39:01.647", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "578", "parent_id": "5506", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "In Japanese, there is probably no simple expression for a quarter hour. You\nhave to say 3時15分前 or 3時15分.\n\nFor a quarter century or quarter period, there are expressions 四半世紀, 四半期.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-14T08:39:10.270", "id": "5510", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-18T11:03:32.947", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-18T11:03:32.947", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "5508", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "A quarter to three is 2時45分 (にじよんじゅうごふん), and a quarter past three is 3時15分\n(さんじじゅうごふん).\n\nIf we want to emphasize the difference from three o’clock, we can say\n“3時の15分前” and “3時の15分後,” but this is not the usual way to state the time.", "comment_count": 5, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-14T11:01:55.870", "id": "5511", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-14T11:01:55.870", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "15", "parent_id": "5508", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 } ]

[ { "body": "I will preface this by saying that I am making some assumptions on different\nreadings of the kanji. I never really thought of this term as \"ten minutes\"\nwhen used in the metaphoric sense as \"enough,\" for the obvious reason that the\npronunciation is different, but maybe there is an actual correlation that I am\nunaware of.\n\n\"Ten minutes\" is pronounced じっぷん or じゅっぷん.\n\n\"Satisfactory\" or \"enough\" is pronounced じゅうぶん.\n\n> 十二分= More than enough\n>\n> 十分= Plenty; enough; sufficient; satisfactory; adequate;\n\nIn a counting system based on intervals of ten, the number ten will represent\na complete set. 分 can be thought of as \"degree,\" as well as minute (it has\nmany meanings). Thus a \"complete degree\" of something will be \"enough\". This\nexpression can be seen as arbitrary in as much as an english speaker will use\n\"100%\" as an arbitrary term to mean \"giving it one's all,\" or will say \"That\ngirl is a ten\" to mean a stunning beauty.", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-14T16:09:35.830", "id": "5513", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-14T16:22:57.487", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T08:18:27.500", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "706", "parent_id": "5512", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 }, { "body": "分 is used as \"one tenth\" in several context, e.g. [in these meanings on\njisho.org](https://jisho.org/word/%E5%88%86-1). So 十分 is ten tenths, or 100%,\nor enough. 十二分 is equivalent to twelve tenths, or 120%, or more than enough.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2019-11-13T12:42:04.470", "id": "73068", "last_activity_date": "2019-11-13T12:42:04.470", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "35341", "parent_id": "5512", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "混信 as you mentioned literally means 異なる信号が混じること, or when two signals emitted\nfrom two different locations \"mix\". This happens when the signals are at the\nsame or very similar frequencies. 混信 generally refers to 電波, or wavelengths\nlonger than infrared light. So, you will see its use when talking about\nwireless communications, radio and television broadcasting, etc.\n\n干渉 has a much broader meaning. In physics, it is the when two waves\nsuperimpose to form a resultant wave of greater or lower amplitude\n([reference](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interference_%28wave_propagation%29)).\nNote that this is not restricted to radio waves as 混信 is. Also, 干渉 can refer\nto [noise(electronics)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noise_%28electronics%29)\nbut 混信 cannot. So, 干渉 can refer to any type of interference (in other words it\nis not restricted to signals).\n\nSo, in your example sentence, I think that both 干渉 and 混信 can be used, but\ndepending on the context they are not necessarily interchangeable. Also, I\nbelieve 干渉 is much more common because it has a more general meaning than 混信.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-14T23:25:05.400", "id": "5519", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-14T23:32:39.913", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-14T23:32:39.913", "last_editor_user_id": "1217", "owner_user_id": "1217", "parent_id": "5517", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "There was a division of\n[GHQ/SCAP](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Commander_for_the_Allied_Powers)\nknown as the Civil Information and Education Section\n([CIE](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B0%91%E9%96%93%E6%83%85%E5%A0%B1%E6%95%99%E8%82%B2%E5%B1%80))\nwhich played a big role in reforming the Japanese education system. Many\nmembers of this group (and also some people on the Japan side) believed that\nromanization of the writing system would help increase the academic ability\nlevel in Japan (and also make it easier for non-native Japanese speakers).\nMany tests were performed to try to prove this was the case. For example,\nrandom literacy test were performed to see how well Japanese really understood\nChinese characters and in some elementary schools romaji was adopted to see if\nthere would be improvement in other subjects, such as Math.\n\nWhat I have said above seems to be agreed upon by all scholars, but the real\nreason why romanization was never adopted seems to be unclear. Some of the\nsites I read claim that the results of the tests proved that there was no\nbenefit in changing to roma-ji and that is why the proposal was shot down,\nwhile [the book pointed about by\nKrazer](http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Literacy_and_Script_Reform_in_Occupation.html?id=ScHa7N2_0HkC)\nclaims that the tests proved somewhat that there seemed to be a benefit in\nchanging to romanization and there may have been some \"cover up\" done by the\nMinistry of Education in Japan at the time to prevent it. Also, other sites\nclaim stuff like a leader change in CIE from a person who was for romanization\nto a person who was against romanization caused it to be shot down. (However,\ndue to this reform, that is why everybody born after World War II can\nunderstand romaji).\n\n**References**\n\n * [漢字かローマ字か日本時の読み書き能力調査](http://sans-culotte.seesaa.net/article/193166662.html)\n * [Literacy and Script Reform in Occupation Japan](http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Literacy_and_Script_Reform_in_Occupation.html?id=ScHa7N2_0HkC)\n * [なぜローマ字化は実現しなかったのか](http://www004.upp.so-net.ne.jp/saitohsy/tojo_naikaku.html)\n * [世界が驚嘆した識字率世界一の日本](http://www.nipponnosekaiichi.com/mind_culture/literacy_rate.html)\n * [Literacy in Japan (was Re: Statistics on education in Japan)](http://honyaku-archive.org/posts/36033/)\n\n(If anyone would like to try to answer this question, I will be glad to reward\nthe bounty :)).", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-17T23:57:06.390", "id": "5558", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-18T23:00:35.353", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-18T23:00:35.353", "last_editor_user_id": "1217", "owner_user_id": "1217", "parent_id": "5520", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 }, { "body": "Undoubtedly the book Krazer suggested would make for the most thorough answer,\nbut the Japanese wikipedia article on the\n[国語審議会](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%9B%BD%E8%AA%9E%E5%AF%A9%E8%AD%B0%E4%BC%9A)\n(the Japanese Language Council) has got some interesting details.\n\nFrom 1949 to 1961 the chairman was 土岐善麿, a supporter of the switch to romaji.\nSome of his work was published in romaji. (At least one example,\n[Nakiwarai](http://kindai.ndl.go.jp/info%3andljp/pid/873903), is online if\nyou'd like to see some period romaji text). Members of the\n[カナモジカイ](http://www1.ocn.ne.jp/~kanamozi/), a group promoting the use of kana\nonly, were also involved. There was a sub-committee for dealing with issues\naround romaji, ローマ字調査分科審議会, from 1950 to 1962. This tackled issues like\ndetermining a standard for romaji, and the use of romaji in education.\n\nFor example,\n[here](http://www.bunka.go.jp/kokugo_nihongo/joho/kakuki/04/sokai036/03.html)\n(1957 - official report) they report the improvement of results (referencing\nJapanese and maths classes), although they did want to do a greater number of\ntests. It also talks about romaji use in society in general - an interesting\nexample given is that for punched tape, it took the least space to encode\nromaji compared to kana or kanji. The new technology of the time was not\nparticularly kanji-friendly.\n\nAt this point it seems there was still the intention to move towards script\nreform. However, conflicts between those in favour of (改革派) and against (慎重派)\nreform came to a head in 1961, when five of the 慎重派 [walked\nout](http://www.bunka.go.jp/kokugo_nihongo/joho/kakuki/05/sokai042_2/05.html)\n(see final remarks by 成瀬正勝 at the end of this page) over arguments about how\nelections were handled. Specifically, I think the feeling was that the 国語審議会\nhad been formed mostly from reformists under the control/influence of the\noccupying forces, and that the same people were being constantly re-elected.\n\nThe Ministry of Education got involved, asking for a re-evaluation of reform\nplans. One of the outcomes of this was that the ローマ字調査分科審議会 was dissolved.\n土岐善麿 was not only no longer chairman after this, he seems to have been removed\nentirely.\n[This](http://www.bunka.go.jp/kokugo_nihongo/joho/kakuki/06/bukai01/01.html),\nfrom the next meeting after the walkouts, summarises some of the viewpoints\nthat had come up critiquing the work of the council, including suggestions\nthat the influence of the romaji and kanamoji groups had complicated things,\nand that the proposals of the council should not be forced on people.\n\nThe final nail in the coffin seems to have come out of a 1966 meeting where\nthe\n[address](http://www.bunka.go.jp/kokugo_nihongo/joho/kakuki/08/sokai058/03.html)\ngiven by the Minister for Education, 中村梅吉, included these lines stating that\nthe use of mixed kana/kanji was pretty much a given:\n\n>\n> 今後のご審議にあたりましては，当然のことながら国語の表記は，漢字かなまじり文によることを前提とし，また現代国語の表記を平明にするという趣旨とともに，従来の諸施策との関連をご考慮の上，広い立場から国語の諸施策の改善の方途をじゅうぶんご検討願いたいのであります。\n\nAfter this, the 国語審議会 focused more on subjects such as the daily-use kanji\nlists. In 1968 the amount of time given to teaching romaji in 小・中学校 was also\nreduced.", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-18T18:34:45.377", "id": "5564", "last_activity_date": "2012-06-15T09:21:41.027", "last_edit_date": "2012-06-15T09:21:41.027", "last_editor_user_id": "107", "owner_user_id": "571", "parent_id": "5520", "post_type": "answer", "score": 14 } ]

[ { "body": "I think you would call them\n[`記{き}号{ごう}`](http://eow.alc.co.jp/%E8%A8%98%E5%8F%B7/UTF-8/), or \"symbols\".\n\nIf you look at the Microsoft Office IME's\n[`入力できる特殊文字の一覧`](http://office.microsoft.com/ja-jp/support/HA010102998.aspx)\npage, you'll see some of these listed under `きごう`.\n\nI think you could also call them\n[`特{とく}殊{しゅ}文{も}字{じ}`](http://eow.alc.co.jp/search?q=%E7%89%B9%E6%AE%8A%E6%96%87%E5%AD%97),\nor \"special characters\".", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-15T07:39:52.053", "id": "5522", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-15T07:45:50.300", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-15T07:45:50.300", "last_editor_user_id": "796", "owner_user_id": "796", "parent_id": "5521", "post_type": "answer", "score": 11 }, { "body": "As cypher said, they are called 記号. Usually, this refers to characters other\nthan letters (kana, kanji, and alphabetic letters) and numerals. Some computer\nprograms call them 特殊文字, but in this case the emphasis is on the fact that\nentering them requires a special method. In typography, characters other than\nletters and numerals are called\n[[約物]{やくもの}](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8&p=%E7%B4%84%E7%89%A9&dtype=0&dname=0ss&stype=1&pagenum=1&index=119595100000).", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-15T11:13:25.410", "id": "5524", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-15T11:13:25.410", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "15", "parent_id": "5521", "post_type": "answer", "score": 11 }, { "body": "Also, there is the word \"shirushi\" (印) meaning sign, symbol.\n\nFor instance your example ※ is called \"komejirushi\" (米印).\n\nThe well-known Zojirushi brand of rice cookers, coffee makers and such, means\n\"Elephant mark\" or \"Elephant brand\" or the like.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-15T20:22:38.410", "id": "5534", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-15T20:22:38.410", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1266", "parent_id": "5521", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 }, { "body": "Komejirushi, reference mark, is used in my kanji book to indicate the 2\nfollowing kanjis must be read as one word and not two as usual. Example kyou\n今日。you cannot read ky and you.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2020-07-07T15:26:36.127", "id": "78475", "last_activity_date": "2020-07-07T15:26:36.127", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "39603", "parent_id": "5521", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[]

[ { "body": "I think the major problem you have is the translation of といっても. It does not\nnecessarily mean as strong as \"even though\" as you wrote. In this case, simply\ntake it as indicating a topic: \"As for technology/skill\", \"Regarding\ntechnology/skill\".", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-15T20:27:50.120", "id": "5535", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-15T20:27:50.120", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "5526", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 }, { "body": "Here is my crack at it:\n\n> Although one may call it a \"skill\", it's not only a matter of how well you\n> do it, but also the \"way of thinking\" of a person who uses that skill that\n> is very important.\n\nLets dissect `気持ちの持ち方まで問題にしているのです。`\n\nThe 気持ちの持ち方 could probably translated as \"way of thinking\" or \"attitude\" as\nMatt N points out. But, basically it means your feelings or disposition with\nregard to something.\n\nThe 問題にしている doesn't mean \"problem\" in the English sense here. You could\nliterally think of it as saying \"make it an issue\". In other words, it is\nsomething that is important is what they are saying.\n\n**EDIT**\n\nHere is a re-translation after understanding more about what this is about:\n\n> Although I said winning or losing depends on your skill level, it's not just\n> whether you are good or bad at it, but your mindset when you play Pachinko\n> is also very important.\n\nI based the above sentence on the following passage:\n\n>\n> ある人が「パチンコは単なる暇つぶしじゃありません。勝ち負けは自分の腕ひとつだと思うから一生懸命になるのです」と言って、こんな話をしてくれました。「腕ひとつとい‌​っても、技術的に上手か下手かだけでわなく、気持ちの持ち方までも問題にしているのです。高い技術を身に付けようとして、悩み、苦しみながら精神的にも成長していく。そうし‌​て身に付けた技術が心と一つになったとき、パチンコに勝てるのです」。", "comment_count": 6, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-15T23:14:06.177", "id": "5536", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-18T23:08:13.157", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-18T23:08:13.157", "last_editor_user_id": "1217", "owner_user_id": "1217", "parent_id": "5526", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "Here is my try:\n\n> \"Regarding skill, it's not only just how good or bad one is, but it is the\n> way one thinks about using a skill which is the matter at hand.\"\n\nI guess this sentiment would make sense in the gravity with which certain\npeople approach a profession, such as an esteemed sushi chef.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-16T03:41:42.553", "id": "5538", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-16T05:53:21.863", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-16T05:53:21.863", "last_editor_user_id": "706", "owner_user_id": "706", "parent_id": "5526", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 }, { "body": "I found a site. If this is from a textbook, I'm not sure I should link to that\nsite, but it's not all that hard to find (it or one like it). I'll just lift\nthe relevant parts.\n\nThe entire context seems to be this (\"Q\" and \"A\" added for clarity):\n\n> Q: 柔道の技術というのは何を問題にしているのですか。 \n> A: 技術といっても、上手か下手かだけではなく、その技術を使う人の気持ちの持ち方まで問題にしているのです。\n\nTranslation:\n\n> Q: What is relevant to someone's judo skills? \n> A: Though it is called skill, whether a person is good or bad at judo is\n> not the only factor; the attitude of the person employing those skills is\n> also important.\n\nThat's the meaning. Nuance...?\n\nXといっても kind of means \"it's kind of X, but not entirely what X immediately\nimplies\".\n\n[問題](http://www.weblio.jp/content/%E5%95%8F%E9%A1%8C) has a meaning of\n\"something that needs to be discussed\", so I took that as \"relevant\". But a\nmore standard translation of 問題 that fits that same sense is \"issue\", so you\nmight also think of the question as \"What is at issue in\" or \"What is an issue\nfor\". For what it's worth, [alc's\nresults](http://eow.alc.co.jp/search?q=%E5%95%8F%E9%A1%8C%E3%81%AB%E3%81%97%E3%81%A6&ref=sa)\nfor 問題にして(いる) suggest \"concern\" or \"worry\"...arguably, \"important\", but those\nare also with people as the subject, not judo or some such, as here (although,\nas you may note by the switcheroo from \"what is relevant\" to \"is also\nimportant\", \"relevant\" and \"important\" are fairly close).", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-19T01:06:10.307", "id": "5567", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-19T01:06:10.307", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1365", "parent_id": "5526", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "Giving my two cents, this is the way I interpret it:\n\n> Q: 柔道の技術というのは何を問題にしているのですか。 \n> Q: What are you making an issue of in regards to the skill of Judo?\n>\n> A: 技術といっても、上手か下手かだけではなく、その技術を使う人の気持ちの持ち方まで問題にしているのです。 \n> A: Though I say it is a skill, it's not just about whether one is good or\n> bad at it, I am making an issue as far as the mindset of the people who\n> employ the skill.\n\n[`問題にする`](http://eow.alc.co.jp/search?q=%E5%95%8F%E9%A1%8C%E3%81%AB%E3%81%99%E3%82%8B&ref=sa)\n= \"make an issue of\" or \"bring (something) into question\".", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-19T02:54:29.920", "id": "5569", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-19T02:54:29.920", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "796", "parent_id": "5526", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "You can try looking for these phrases or words with these sites:\n\n<http://www.alc.co.jp/>\n\n<http://ejje.weblio.jp/>\n\nIf you become a member of <http://lang-8.com/> (it is free), you can ask\nnative speakers for examples or explanations.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-15T15:39:07.340", "id": "5528", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-15T15:39:07.340", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "706", "parent_id": "5527", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "I don't think there is a \"normally\" appropriate way. My personal philosophy is\nnever assume you can read someone's name.\n\nI suppose last names are easier to make a correct (educated) guess. It seems\nlike they more often use kun-yomi. But they could be on-yomi, or other,\nlesser-used kun-yomi. I have two friends whose last names are the kanji `金城`.\nHowever, one of them is `かねしろ` and the other is `きんじょう`. `吉田` I've seen as\nboth `よしだ` and `きちだ`.\n\nFirst names are a whole other story. From what I've heard and researched, it\nseems that Japanese people are allowed to basically associate any kanji they\nwant with any reading they want. Kind of like how it's trendy these days to\nmake up your own spellings for English names ('Lynzee', 'Linzy', Davyd',\n'Markis', etc.) So your friend `良` could be the `よし` or `りょう`, but he could be\nsomething completely off-the-wall like `ちから` or `あきら`. Or `真` could be `ま`,\n`まこと`, `しん`, `のぶ`, or some other, random reading.\n\nNever assume you can read someone's name. That is why when you fill out\npaperwork (application forms, official documents, etc.), they make you fill\nout the furigana for your kanji.", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-15T18:30:41.590", "id": "5532", "last_activity_date": "2023-04-09T19:44:15.593", "last_edit_date": "2023-04-09T19:44:15.593", "last_editor_user_id": "78", "owner_user_id": "78", "parent_id": "5529", "post_type": "answer", "score": 17 }, { "body": "Istrasci's answer is basically right and deserving of the green check, but I\nthought it worth adding a little more dimension, which is to answer a question\nimplied by yours, which is, \"how do Japanese people approach the problem?\"\n_(Not to mention that Stack Exchange considers a healthy site one that has\nmore than one answer to each question...)_\n\nThere is no particularly reliable system for determining what reading to use\nfor a person's name. However, there are a lot of very common readings\nassociated with the most frequent names. As one friend described it to me, in\na sense, people in Japan have a memorized list of the most common readings\nthat they will use as their first guess.\n\n`田中` is most likely to be `たなか`, not `だなか` or `たうち`, or other possibilities,\nfor no other reason other than it's the usual reading.\n\nIf you look at a lot of people's name cards, they will often have furigana\nover their names, either because it's a common kanji with an unusual reading,\nor a kanji that is so unusual that they don't expect most people to know it.\nIt's an indication of how Japanese don't expect anyone to be able to determine\na reading by another other method other than simply being informed of it.\n\nPeople born and raised in Japan simply have the benefit of familiarity. As\nsomeone who is not native to Japan but have lived here a long time, I've built\nup my own list of assumed readings, though of course it's not as reliable as\nthe natives.\n\nUltimately, it's not something you need to really set out to solve. The longer\nyou deal in Japanese, you'll naturally just become familiar with the common\nreadings. And no one is surprised or offended should you ever have to ask for\na reading.", "comment_count": 6, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-17T02:43:12.620", "id": "5547", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-17T02:43:12.620", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "119", "parent_id": "5529", "post_type": "answer", "score": 9 }, { "body": "I once sat with two senior members of staff of a small but highly prestigious\nJapanese university while we went through the staff list of the institution\nlooking for people who might be interested in taking up a fellowship at a\nBritish university. Between them they read out all the names - about 400. They\nhad both taught at the university for over twenty years and were personally\nacquainted with a good proportion of the staff members. They were not quite\nsure of the pronunciations of, I'd say, 5-10% of the family names and were\nuncertain of the pronunciations of maybe 25-30% of the given names - even\nthose of people they knew. The fact is, you can't be absolutely sure of the\npronunciation of a Japanese person's name unless you have heard it from their\nown lips or are in possession of a meishi with furigana. I think this is just\nsomething the Japanese live with - it doesn't bother them until they need for\nsome reason to be sure.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2017-04-08T15:40:43.793", "id": "45351", "last_activity_date": "2017-04-08T15:40:43.793", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "20069", "parent_id": "5529", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "It's a [repetition mark](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iteration_mark#Kana) or\n`くの字点` (for its similarity to the character く, as you noted).\n\n> い \n> ろ \n> 〳 \n> 〵 \n> の \n> 注 \n> 文\n\nIt's only used in vertical text, and repeats over two or more characters,\nwhich for your examples results in `ひいひいと` and `いろいろの注文`.\n\nThere is also a single-kana repetition mark `ゝ` (which is the kana equivalent\nof the kanji repetition mark `々`), but just like the multi-character version,\nit's no longer used in modern Japanese.\n\nI don't want to retype the whole Wikipedia article, so do click on that link\n;)", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-15T18:00:57.627", "id": "5531", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-15T18:00:57.627", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "315", "parent_id": "5530", "post_type": "answer", "score": 15 } ]

[ { "body": "I'm not a native speaker, but like Chocolate says, I think もっと simply feels\nmore \"common language\", whereas より feels more fancy.\n\nTo ilustrate the range of difference, let's take your first example:\n\n> 危険性がより大きい \n> \"at greater risk\"\n\nNow, if you used もっと, I think this translation...\n\n> 危険性がもっと大きい \n> \"at (a) bigger risk\"\n\n...accurately illustrates the kind of difference between the two words. Not a\nhuge difference, but \"greater\" kind of sounds more eloquent than \"bigger\".", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-16T14:53:40.767", "id": "5540", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-16T14:53:40.767", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1365", "parent_id": "5539", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 }, { "body": "I learned the word より in combination with のほう, and of course later found out\nthat neither requires the presence of the other. However, when using もっと, a\ncomparative meaning is implied without the use of another word. In this way,\nperhaps the use of より implies more of a comparative meaning than もっと(in that\nit sometimes makes me think of のほう, even if it is not present) . In the second\nexample provided by the OP, when replacing the もっと with より, I think a more\ncomparative meaning is implied thusly:\n\n> それ以上である。それはもっと大きい夢である。 \"It is more than that; it is a bigger dream.\"\n>\n> それ以上です。それより大きい夢です。 \"It is more than that; it is a bigger dream (than that).\"\n\nThis is just a hunch, however, and I am unsure if the second example is even\ngrammatically correct. I removed the は and changed the verbs to make it more\ncolloquial.\n\nSo I guess another question can be whether there is a difference between these\ntwo sentences (I wonder which is more colloquial):\n\nそれはもっと大きい夢です。\n\nそれより大きい夢です。", "comment_count": 7, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-16T16:33:21.033", "id": "5541", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-16T19:04:39.860", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-16T19:04:39.860", "last_editor_user_id": "706", "owner_user_id": "706", "parent_id": "5539", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "[Conclusion of a discussion I had with ento about the restriction of usage of\nもっと](http://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/511?m=6691868#6691868):\n\nConsider:\n\n> A: XとY、どちらのほうが安いですか \n> B: Xのほうが、Yよりもっと安いです。 \n>\n\nもっと sounds strange in this case because it implies that Y actually is \"安い\" to\na degree. B is comparing the cheapness of the two, when A is just comparing\ntheir prices.\n\nComparing the cheapness of the two is different from comparing their prices.\nEven though B's response satisfies what A asks, but at the same time, B\nslipped in a subjective judgment that X and Y are cheap.\n\nThat is to say that by using もっと, it reveals that B has a presupposition that\nboth items are cheap, which is not necessarily the case, nor has been implied\nby A. So the introduction of this irrelevant presupposition makes the the use\nof もっと strange.\n\nSo for もっと to be used, there should be a precedent for which the \"whatever-\nness\" you wish to express has already been established, and you wish to\nexpress more of it.\n\n* * *\n\nTo answer \"Why or why not would the two be interchangeable?\", I would say\nchanging them would change the perception of circumstances that the sentence\nis in:\n\nIf the sentence is `危険性がもっと大きい。`, `もっと` would create the perception that it is\nalready `危険性が大きい` and you are expressing even more.\n\nFor `それはもっと大きい夢である。` It creates the perception that the `夢` was already `大きい`.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-11-18T12:19:04.030", "id": "9488", "last_activity_date": "2012-11-18T12:26:00.643", "last_edit_date": "2012-11-18T12:26:00.643", "last_editor_user_id": "542", "owner_user_id": "542", "parent_id": "5539", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "べく is 連用形 of the auxiliary verb べし, 'should/ought to/be supposed to do~~/it's\nnatural to do~~'. ~~べくして~~した is a set phrase which literally means 'was\nsupposed to do ~~ and did ~~'/'had to do ~~ and did ~~' so 勝つべくして勝った would be\nlike 'someone was supposed to win, because he was competent to, and he did\nwin'/'it was natural for someone to win because he was competent enough'.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-16T23:27:13.607", "id": "5545", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-17T08:04:28.680", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-17T08:04:28.680", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "5544", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 } ]

[ { "body": "けい denoting the sound けえ is the result of some historic process of evolution\nwithin the Japanese language.\n\nKatakana is used for phonetic spellings of foreign loanwords (among other\nuses).\n\nIn this use, 携帯 is being re-framed as a foreign word to be spelled\nphonetically (because it is cool or unusual or whatever: this is advertising\nlogic).\n\nSo ケイ would not be used, for the same reason it's not used in ケーキ (cake).\n\n(But maybe in the next revision of the ad, they will try ケイ just for its\nattention-getting effect!)\n\nAnyway, since ケーキ is a loan-word, it wouldn't make sense to give it a spelling\nwhich would try to make it look like it is actually an old Japanese word which\nevolved to a modern \"kee...\" pronunciation, but retained a historic spelling!\n\nIf a word containing the sound \"uff\" is borrowed into English, should we spell\nit \"ough\", like \"tough\"?\n\nChanging the prefix and suffix of \"suffix\", we obtain \"soughicks\".", "comment_count": 5, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-17T04:34:49.807", "id": "5551", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-17T04:34:49.807", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1266", "parent_id": "5548", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "First of all, you are right about ー: it always extends the vowel that came\nbefore it. (And the official name for it that I know is 長音符, ちょうおんぷ, \"long\nsound mark\", like cypher said.)\n\n> What struck me though is that in this case, they are using katakana for a\n> word for which there is kanji: 携帯けいたい, and in that kanji, the first\n> character is read けい. Not けえ.\n\nThis is actually an interesting issue. It is _written_ けい, but the majority of\n\"standard dialect\" speakers in the majority of cases pronounce it as if it\nwere written けえ. This includes newscasters and so on -- even NHK's accent\ndictionary recognizes けえ as the \"standard\" pronunciation of this sound.\n\nYou can test this by asking someone to say けいたい and then say ケースバイケース\nnaturally and at a regular speed. Unless they suspect something, most of them\nwill pronounce the first two morae of those two words the same. (When you\nyourself say けいたい at normal speed, does your mouth move during the けい? If not,\nyou too are saying けえ.)\n\nOn the other hand, if you ask someone to pronounce the word けいたい mora by mora,\nmost people will say け, い, た, い, and some people speaking carefully or trying\nto enunciate precisely might say けいたい rather than けーたい as well. I don't want\nto get into an argument about exactly who says けいたい and when; when you view\nstandard-dialect speech patterns in the aggregate, it is widely agreed that\nけーたい is the most common way the word comes out. I could dig up some references\nfor you if you like, but by necessity they would be to books about\nlinguistics.\n\n(Sidenote: Interestingly, this rule does not apply to \"native Japanese\" words\nlike えい \"ray [kind of fish]\", which would not be pronounced ええ in the standard\ndialect. My impression is that more recent loanwords like スペイン also tend to\nretain the イ sound, and not turn out like スペーン. The /ei/ → /e:/ phenomenon is\nbasically restricted to words using Chinese morphemes.)\n\nSo the use of the spelling ケータイ is _sort of_ like \"eye dialect\" in English,\nlike writing \"gonna (do something)\" instead of \"going to (do something)\", or\n\"-in'\" instead of \"-ing\". It's representing the actual sound rather than the\nspelling. The basic effect is to make the copy feel more casual and friendly,\neven slangy.\n\nIn this particular case... Well, first, I disagree with Kaz's argument that it\nre-frames the word as a _foreign_ word, although there _might_ be an argument\nthat it is about non-native _pronunciation_ , given the context -- \"oniisan\"\nand all that. But I'm not sure how likely that is; really I think they are\njust trying to come off hip and relaxed (note that even if you spell it kanji,\n\"携帯代\" is slang).", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-17T23:52:50.357", "id": "5557", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-17T23:52:50.357", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "531", "parent_id": "5548", "post_type": "answer", "score": 10 } ]

[ { "body": "> Say what? Putting aside the fact that this sounds like a whitewashed\n> description of sexual assault, at what point in history was this \"practice\"\n> so common that it was given a name?\n\nI don't know when it started, but the word originally comes from [呼ばう]{よばう}\nand is more commonly written as [夜這い]{よばい}. It is an old Japanese custom that\nwas common up until the Meiji or Taisho Period and originally was thought of\nas a way to propose to a girl (I use the word \"propose\" very loosely here).\nHowever, in very local areas, it supposedly lasted up until around World War\nII.\n\n> Is the definition accurate, or is it just another case of WWWJDIC and its\n> occasionally misguided and erroneous community contributed obscure\n> definitions?\n\nIt is misleading. The way we think of two people meeting, falling in love and\ngetting married is very different from what went on in the olden days in\nJapan. There was also no concept of \"cheating on your spouse\", etc. the way we\nthink of nowadays. Basically every small village had a set of customs or rules\nwhich everyone would abide by. よばい refers to a custom were men were allowed to\ngo to the place where a girl was sleeping, and if the girl approved, make\nlove. Now, if the girl refused, you were supposed to leave or else the father\nwould come and haul the guy away. However, sexual assault did occur sometimes,\nand よばい _sometimes_ does implicitly imply that. Also, in some villages, if you\ndidn't abide by the rules, there would be some kind of punishment involved.\n\nHowever, every village was different. In some areas it was common for women to\nsneak into guys rooms, or they would hold a festival of girls (or guys) who\n\"became of age\" where older people would teach them how to have sex. Also, a\nlot of times you would have sex with so many different people, nobody really\nknew who their real father was. The examples I'm giving are just some of the\ncustoms that were present, but I'm sure there are a lot more. Also, the idea\nof \"marriage\" in Japan was when you could regularly go to a girl's house\nwithout sneaking. The word 結婚 itself didn't actually exist till the Meiji Era\nbecause there was no word to translate \"marry\"*\n\n*: It should be noted that there were words that meant \"becoming a couple\" in Japanese, such as [婚姻]{こんいん} that existed before the word 結婚, but they didn't mean the same thing as the word \"marriage\" in English.\n\n**References**\n\n * [夜這い](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%9C%E9%80%99%E3%81%84) \\- Wikipedia Article\n * [田舎の『夜這い』文化についてご存知の方いますか？](http://oshiete.goo.ne.jp/qa/2605907.html)\n\n * [結婚の語源](http://www.7key.jp/data/word_custom/kekkon.html)", "comment_count": 9, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-17T06:25:37.220", "id": "5555", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-20T03:21:07.533", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-20T03:21:07.533", "last_editor_user_id": "91", "owner_user_id": "1217", "parent_id": "5550", "post_type": "answer", "score": 19 } ]

[ { "body": "This 切{き}る means 下回{したまわ}る, to fall below~~.", "comment_count": 8, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-17T05:32:56.800", "id": "5554", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-17T06:18:55.510", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-17T06:18:55.510", "last_editor_user_id": "119", "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "5552", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 }, { "body": "Just because one of the figurative meanings of \"cut\" in English is \"to reduce\nin number\", doesn't mean that the same applies to 切る in Japanese. That is\nsimply not one of the figurative meanings of 切る.\n\n切るdoes have many figurative meanings, however.\n\nOne is \"fall below\" for prices, times, numbers etc.\n\nAnother is to \"lay off, fire\". When used in this sense, the meaning might seem\nclose to \"to reduce in number\", so that could be one cause for the confusion.", "comment_count": 11, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-18T08:18:36.190", "id": "5561", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-18T08:18:36.190", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1073", "parent_id": "5552", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 }, { "body": "Don't think about \"cut\". Stop thinking about \"cut from\" or \"cut down to\" or\nanything else. At a certain point, thinking in English about Japanese becomes\nmore obstructive than anything else. Just think in Japanese.\n\nWell, OK, the example from your question (300万まん人にんを切きった。) isn't the most\nintuitive. Let's go with another example. I first encountered this meaning in\nthe context of a race, and I think that's a great way to understand this\nmeaning, so we'll go with that (lifting Chocolate's example from another\ncomment...). Again, only think in Japanese.\n\n> 100メートル競走{きょうそう}に10秒{びょう}を切{き}った。\n\nこの文だけに集中して、想像して。この人は毎日１００メートル走を走っている。毎日走って、毎日１０秒以上のタイムしか取れない。そこで、ある日この人は本当に思い切って走って、なんと！タイムは９.９秒！この人はやっと１０秒を切った！。。。という。\n\n...Once you've got a good grasp on this sense of 切る in one setting, you can\neasily carry that over to other settings.\n\nI hope that helps at all. =X (If I made mistakes, by all means point them out,\nfix them!)", "comment_count": 7, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-18T17:18:19.217", "id": "5562", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-18T17:18:19.217", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1365", "parent_id": "5552", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "Let's look at some example sentences:\n\n> ゲームとネット **だけが** [生きがい]{いきがい}\n>\n> 自分 **だけが** 知ってる[秘密]{ひみつ}\n>\n> [悲しみ]{かなしみ} **だけが** 夢をみる\n\nTo put it simply, a strong emphasis is put on whatever comes before the だけが to\nmean \"The only thing\", \"The only person\", \"The only reason\", etc. In other\nwords, translating it as \"not just\" would be a mistake. It actually means the\nopposite, for example you could translate the first example as:\n\n> (Video) Games and the internet are my only reason for living. (Assuming the\n> subject is the speaker)\n\nI hope you can see that \"not just\" doesn't make much sense in the above\nsentence. So, based on the above logic, I would translate the sentence in the\nposter as:\n\n> Where does the smoke go? **Only** the smoker doesn't care. (Which I think is\n> a better translation than what's in the poster :))\n\nAs an exercise, how would you translate the last sentence? [悲しみ]{かなしみ}だけが夢をみる\n\nAlso, I should warn that these ad campaigns are run by JT (Japan Tobacco)\nbecause they try to brainwash people into believing that smokers and non-\nsmokers can live in harmony as long as the smokers obey manners, but I\ndigress..", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-19T22:13:21.390", "id": "5571", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-21T01:41:44.873", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T08:18:27.500", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "1217", "parent_id": "5553", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 }, { "body": "It's just as Jesse Good says, but I'd like to clarify that だけが is だけ **only**\n+ が **subject marker** , expressing that the noun before だけが is the subject of\nthe clause's verb.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-12-25T03:10:08.873", "id": "21019", "last_activity_date": "2014-12-25T03:10:08.873", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "8009", "parent_id": "5553", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "より in examples 1 and 4 is a particle which marks a target of comparison, and\nより in examples 2 and 3 is an adverb which signifies that the adjective which\nit modifies is a comparison. See the answers to [this\nquestion](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/1676/how-should-i-\nview-%E3%81%A7%E3%82%88%E3%82%8A-and-%E3%81%A7%E3%81%AE%E3%82%88%E3%82%8A) for\nan explanation of adverb より.\n\nより一層 is just two adverbs より and 一層. 一層 means “even more,” or “even …er” when\nit modifies an adjective.\n\nYour translations are fine. As you probably noticed, we cannot translate the\nJapanese sentence in example 4 into a complete sentence in English without\nknowing what the subject is because a complete sentence has to have a subject\nin English. Just in case, this does not mean that the Japanese sentence in\nexample 4 is incomplete.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-18T01:38:34.813", "id": "5559", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-18T01:38:34.813", "last_edit_date": "2017-04-13T12:43:44.740", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "15", "parent_id": "5556", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "1 and 4 are the same. They are a particle placed after noun phrases, meaning\nroughly the same as the preposition \"than\" in English (which some will claim\nhas to be a conjunction, but let's not go there), i.e. it makes the noun\nphrase a basis for comparison.\n\n2 and 3 are the same. They are an adverb placed before adjectives, meaning\nroughly the same as the English \"more\" or \"-er\", i.e. it turns the adjective\ninto its comparative form.\n\nWhat might be confusing you is that Japanese doesn't need to use a\n\"comparative form\" of adjectives in comparisons, i.e. you can say\n\n> AはBより大きい\n\nIn this case より attaches to B and 大きい isn't modified.\n\nYou _could_ also say\n\n> AはBより、より大きい\n\nwhich I guess more closely mirrors the e.g. English construction, but there's\nno reason for the two よりs, and this sounds awkward (while maybe not\nungrammatical).", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-18T01:50:18.113", "id": "5560", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-18T01:57:09.783", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-18T01:57:09.783", "last_editor_user_id": "1073", "owner_user_id": "1073", "parent_id": "5556", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "I kind of feel like です is more personal, more set, whereas がある (or はある) is\nmore distanced, more nebulous or open to change. (I'm actually more\ncomfortable with はある; I think it sounds a bit more correct, or likely.)\n\nConsider です. 青いです means \"It is blue\", period, and that is a fact. By contrast,\nusing ある instead of です implies a little less personal investment in the\nstatement, to me.\n\nLet's consider そのつもりです and そのつもりはあります.\n\nIf these statements are in the first person, then そのつもりです implies (to me) a\nconfidence that it WILL happen, while そのつもりはあります sounds a little less\nconfident (or more open to change) or just more distanced (perhaps in an\neffort to be humble).\n\nIf someone were looking to change your mind about plans you have, and you\nanswered そのつもりです, it would sound to me like you're against changing your\nplans, or (at worst) in favor of your plans and not sure why you should change\nthem. If you answered そのつもりはあります, though, it would sound a little more\nreceptive, to me.\n\nIf these statements are in the third person (a third party is the subject),\nthen そのつもりです implies (to me) confidence that those are the other person's\nplans, while そのつもりはあります might imply that you believe those to be their plans,\nbut perhaps you're not greatly familiar with those plans, or perhaps not\ngreatly familiar with the person and don't feel comfortable speaking so\nstrongly for the other person (again, humility you could call it).\n\nAs for the negative examples you gave, I feel like they're just talking about\nseparate things. (I'm going to substitute その for ～する and は for が again, for\nsimplicity/my comfort.)\n\n> その予定はありません \n> (I) don't have those plans. OR Those are not (my) plans. \n> その予定ではありません \n> Those are not (my) plans.\n\nNow, the second translation for the former looks like the latter, but...\"my\nplans\" in the former is \"plans that I have\", whereas \"my plans\" in the latter\nis \"THE plans that I have\".\n\nThe former is expressing: you suggested a plan, and I don't have that plan\n(though I may have other plans). The latter is expressing: you suggested that\nI have plans and that they are X, but the plans I have are NOT X.\n\nBut, of course, the disclaimer...I'm not a native speaker, so I could just be\nimagining some of this. But I guess that's in part what the voting system and\ncomments are for. Speak up, Stack Exchange!", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-19T21:22:53.763", "id": "5570", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-19T21:22:53.763", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1365", "parent_id": "5563", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "The structure affects the difference in the meanings.\n\n> ...つもりだ \n> 'my will is such that ...'\n>\n> ...つもりがある \n> 'I have a (partial) will such that ... (but I also may have another\n> contradicting will)'\n\nThis results in that the former has more determined meaning than the latter\n(as SomethingJapanese observes).\n\nThis difference in meaning also explains what Chocolate and gibbon discuss in\nthe comment. Unlike `つもり` 'will' or `予定` 'plan' which may or may not be\nstrongly determined, `はず` 'being ought to' is strongly determined by nature.\nTherefore, it does not go well with the weaker expression `がある`, whose\nimplicature that it is \"weakly determined\" contradicts with the \"strongly\ndetermined\" meaning.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-24T15:28:43.107", "id": "5614", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-24T15:28:43.107", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "5563", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "Basic furigana means, for 絶対{ぜったい}, 'zettai' is how you read 絶対...period.\n\nFor the non-standard cases, think of it basically the same way, but with a\nlittle twist: for 巨{おお}きく, 'oo' is how _I want_ you to read 巨.\n\nAs a deeper example...\n\n> 泥棒{おまえ}は信用{しんよう}出来{でき}ない。\n\nIf this is a line of dialogue, the person is saying \"I can't trust you\", but\nthe implication is that \"you\" are a thief, and that is why you cannot be\ntrusted.\n\nWhen the furigana are not standard, in my experience, the furigana is what is\nsaid, and the kanji is what is meant. For your example, there's not a lot of\ndifference between 巨 and おお(きい), but it should be basically the same thing: おお\nis how it's said, but 巨 is the underlying meaning.", "comment_count": 6, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-18T20:43:22.693", "id": "5566", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-18T20:43:22.693", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1365", "parent_id": "5565", "post_type": "answer", "score": 11 }, { "body": "I would say, your question is \"not well posed\". When you study Japanese, you\nare taught that each kanji has readings. It's taught that way, because, I\npresume, it's easier to teach that way.\n\nA more precise interpretation of what's happening in Japanese is that you\n_choose_ a kanji for the Japanese word. In practice, there are _a few very\ncommon_ choices for each Japanese word; so much so that it _appears_ as if\neach kanji had fixed readings associated with it.\n\nThat's why you thought that the association of 巨 with おおきい was invalid. It's\nnot invalid. It's just that the writer _chose_ the kanji for the Japanese word\nおおきい most likely because the kanji best expresses the nuance she or he wanted.\n\nThe dictionary doesn't list this association of 巨 with おおきい simply because\nit's not common. The dictionary doesn't set rules on what kanji can be used\nfor what Japanese words; it simply _records_ most _common_ associations\nbetween kanjis and Japanese words.\n\n**Edit:** I've come across this use of 巨: 「それは異様に頭の巨きい少年であった」from \"Hanakatami\n(花筐)\" (1937) by Dan Kazuo (檀一雄)。There is one more instance down the same page.\nAt the first occurrence, there is a furigana in my copy but I don't know\nwhether it was added by an editor. For this case, the furigana isn't necessary\nbecause the context and the きい part of 巨きい unambiguously imply its reading.\n\n. . . The point I'd like to make here is that the simplistic view that each\nkanji has a few fixed readings is a product of the simplified, standardized\neducation after World War II in Japan. Old writers, as well as good writers\ntoday, don't take that view. They just use whatever kanji is \"best\".\n\nBelow Ci3 asks a perfectly valid question: [to interpret his/her question in\nmy own way] How can one then decide what's a good kanji for each Japanese\nword? Even though it's a good question, there is no good answer to it. Suppose\nyou are writing English and trying to describe a color. You wonder whether you\nshould write \"red\", \"deep red\", \"scarlet\", or \"red-purple\". Which is best?\nThere is no answer to such a question. You can safely say that \"green\" is an\nextremely bad choice to describe the color and you can also say that \"red\" is\nalways the safest choice although it may not best describe the color you are\nlooking at. . . . Same idea. Although 大 is always the safest choice for おおきい,\nit may not be the best one for the instance.", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2018-01-19T00:28:38.317", "id": "56041", "last_activity_date": "2018-02-10T16:27:40.850", "last_edit_date": "2018-02-10T16:27:40.850", "last_editor_user_id": "9983", "owner_user_id": "9983", "parent_id": "5565", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "Though different from the example you gave, there _are_ examples where the\nfurigana even contradicts the okurigana(!!)\n\nFor example, the word [崇まふ]{あがまう} - the furigana there gives the pronunciation\nof the _entire word_ - has a spelling which ends in ふ, but the pronunciation\nends with う. Another example is [目合ひ]{まぐわい} - there is no ひ at the end of the\npronunciation.†\n\nAs for \"why?\" - both of these examples, along with all the others I could\nfind, are considered archaisms, from before the language reforms of the\nmid-1900's. They're not something you'd run into often. I have no idea if\nthey're even commonly known to native speakers _(I only encountered them when\nthey broke the okurigana logic in a dictionary parser I worked on)_\n\n* * *\n\n† _For anyone who disagrees: both the English-Japanese database JMDict and the\nJapanese dictionary 広辞苑 agree that these are the correct pronunciations_", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2021-05-05T22:14:37.117", "id": "86496", "last_activity_date": "2021-05-06T04:22:25.530", "last_edit_date": "2021-05-06T04:22:25.530", "last_editor_user_id": "6786", "owner_user_id": "6786", "parent_id": "5565", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "> Well, the extended question I wanted to ask was more along the lines of \"At\n> what age does the Japanese population comprehend and utilize Yojijukugo?\"\n\nIn a broad sense, keep in mind that \"Yojijukugo\" can refer to any 4 letter\ncompound word. For example, [天気予報]{てんきよほう} and [高速道路]{こうそくどうろ} are\n\"Yojijukugo\". However, I'm assuming that you mean \"Yojijukugo\" in the narrower\nsense. 4 letter compound words that are used idiomatically that can't be\nunderstood from just looking at the 漢字. If this is the case, many children\nstart picking them up in elementary school, and if the parent is eager enough,\nthey might buy [a book or flash\ncards](http://www.amazon.co.jp/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?__mk_ja_JP=%E3%82%AB%E3%82%BF%E3%82%AB%E3%83%8A&url=search-\nalias%3Dstripbooks&field-\nkeywords=%E5%9B%9B%E5%AD%97%E7%86%9F%E8%AA%9E&x=0&y=0) and start teaching\ntheir children even earlier. However, the amount of \"Yojijukugo\" a person\nknows can vary greatly and there overuse can be awkward especially in daily\nconversation. Although for reading comprehension, a certain level of aptitude\nis definitely necessary. As a way to judge your level, I would recommend\nfinding a book or flash cards intended for elementary school students, as\nanything of any higher level would probably not be well known by the general\npublic (a simple search brought up this site:\n[小学生のうちに覚えたい四字熟語の一覧表](http://dorilu.net/itiran4zyukugo.htm), I think this list\nwould be sufficient for the JLPT).\n\nMy particular favorite is\n[[唯我独尊]{ゆいがどくそん}](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%94%AF%E6%88%91%E7%8B%AC%E5%B0%8A),\nwhich comes from Buddhism.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-20T23:49:39.927", "id": "5578", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-21T00:21:08.080", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-21T00:21:08.080", "last_editor_user_id": "1217", "owner_user_id": "1217", "parent_id": "5572", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "> So I'm wondering, is this just a reporter's ham-fisted attempt to inflate\n> the human drama by painting a picture of a cruel and uncaring Japanese\n> culture that exacerbates eating disorders?\n\nThere could be several reasons I can think of:\n\n 1. The Japanese woman who said this might of meant it \"metaphorically\" rather than \"literally\", in the sense that there is a tendency to not express ones inner feelings as much in Japan as in other cultures. However, anybody that has studied Japanese before should be able to realize that the sentence is false, so it's obvious the author is inept.\n\n 2. Somewhere along the lines, the actual meaning of the quote got botched, perhaps by the interpreter or someone else (this is very common and often leads to false information) (maybe due to reason #1).\n\n 3. The author exaggerated to get people's attention and sell magazines (the original article is from Marie Claire magazine). Unfortunately, the majority of the audience probably wouldn't realize this, which gives a false conception about Japanese to the general public (for example, as an extreme case of a false conception, in America, I met a person who asked me if people in Japan walk around with swords like \"Samurai\").\n\nBut the moral of the story is don't always believe what you read.", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-20T23:05:05.647", "id": "5577", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-20T23:05:05.647", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1217", "parent_id": "5573", "post_type": "answer", "score": 14 } ]

[ { "body": "To answer the question in the title, yes, it is generally only used in\nliterary text and, I would say less often, on TV. It could also potentially be\nused in a really formal speech or something like that.\n\nI remember in my 9th or 10th month of studying the language I tried this out\non a Japanese friend, saying something like `行くまい` instead of `行かないだろう`. I got\na weird look followed by a laugh, and he explained that it would never be used\nthis way. The only explanation he could offer was that it sounded archaic, and\nthis is the reason it's not generally used - the same reason that we don't\nstart using old English in English conversations.\n\nSure, it's fair to say that users of the Japanese language tend to shorten\nthings a lot, but that's not to say that the shortest way is always the normal\nor \"modern\" way. For example, the archaic form `いかぬ` meaning `いけない` is not\nused in modern Japanese.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-20T12:35:17.207", "id": "5575", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-20T13:09:53.963", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-20T13:09:53.963", "last_editor_user_id": "1272", "owner_user_id": "1272", "parent_id": "5574", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 } ]

[ { "body": "Looking at\n[Daijisen](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?p=%E3%82%82%E3%81%A3%E3%81%9F%E3%81%84%E3%81%AA%E3%81%84&enc=UTF-8&stype=0&dtype=0),\n[Daijirin](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?p=%E3%82%82%E3%81%A3%E3%81%9F%E3%81%84%E3%81%AA%E3%81%84&enc=UTF-8&stype=0&dtype=0&dname=0ss),\n[the Yahoo JE\ndictionary](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?p=%E3%82%82%E3%81%A3%E3%81%9F%E3%81%84%E3%81%AA%E3%81%84&enc=UTF-8&stype=0&dtype=3),\nEdict etc, it seems to mean:\n\n> 1. \"a pity to waste\"/\"too good to waste\"\n> * When said by itself it often refers to wasting food or time etc\n> according to [English Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mottainai).\n> * According to [this site](http://eikaiwa-phrase.com/1003.html),\n> `～がもったいない` is often similar to `～の無駄` as in `時間がもったいない`/`時間の無駄だよ`, and that\n> `もったいない！` can allude to `何て無駄なんだ！` \"what a waste!\".\n> 2. \"sacrilegious\"\n> 3. \"more than (I) deserve\"/\"too good for (me)\"\n> 4. \"improper/wrong\", \"outrageous\", \"absurd/unreasonable\" (as far as I know\n> this usage is relatively uncommon.)\n>\n\nAs far as I know, the most common usage is \"too good [for/to waste]\".\n\nThe way I interpret those sentences is:\n\n> 24時間365日、どこにいてもこれからは、もうずーっと素直でいる。 \n> 24 hours a day 365 days a year, wherever I am from now on, I'm going to\n> henceforth be true to myself.\n>\n> じゃないと今日の興味にも失敗にも向き合えないまま。 \n> If I don't, I will remain unable to face even today's interests and\n> failures.\n>\n> もったいないから素直でいる！ \n> (It would be a) pity to waste (time) so I'm going to be true to myself!\n\n**Edit:** Hopefully fixed translation of もったいない in this context.", "comment_count": 6, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-21T00:11:14.300", "id": "5579", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-23T00:56:43.007", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-23T00:56:43.007", "last_editor_user_id": "796", "owner_user_id": "796", "parent_id": "5576", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "* どうしたらいい 'what I am supposed to do, what I should do'\n * どうしていい 'what I am allowed to do, what I may do'", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-21T04:46:16.693", "id": "5581", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-21T04:46:16.693", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "5580", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 }, { "body": "Looking at it backwards...\n\n> こうしたらいい \n> If I do this, good outcome. \n> こうしたらよくない \n> If I do this, bad outcome.\n\nAnd...\n\n> こうして(は)いい \n> I can do this (because it achieves a good outcome). \n> こうしてはだめ \n> I can't/shouldn't do this (because it achieves a bad outcome).\n\nSo it kind of sounds like...\n\n> どうしたらいいか分かりません \n> I don't know what will achieve a good outcome. \n> どうしていいか分かりません \n> I don't know what I can possibly do. (OR...) \n> I can't figure out what I can/should do.\n\nThat's my best attempt at clearly capturing the difference between the two,\nbut if you're still unsure, I do think that considering the feel of こうしたら？\nversus こうしては？ can illuminate the difference somewhat.\n\nI also feel like どうしたらいい is a little less immediate/urgent than どうしていい, but\nI'm not sure how to explain that difference well.\n\nThe difference is difficult to pinpoint, really...but I imagine it won't make\na great difference most of the time, either.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-21T05:22:00.090", "id": "5582", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-21T05:28:31.580", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-21T05:28:31.580", "last_editor_user_id": "1365", "owner_user_id": "1365", "parent_id": "5580", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Are you familiar with hito, futa, mi, yo, itsu, mu, nana, ya, kokono? They\nappear in the counter words for objects (eg hitotsu, futatsu), and in some\ncounter words for people (hitori, futari, ..., yonin), and in some of the days\nof the month (the second day of the month being futsuka).\n\n**Edit** : My understanding is that ichi, ni, san, shi, ... are Chinese words\nfor the numbers, and that hito, futa, mi, yo, itsu, are the Japanese words for\nthe numbers. Sometimes the Japanese use Chinese words for numbers in the\ncounters, and sometimes they use the Japanese words. They tend to use the\nJapanese words more often when it comes to numbers containing 4 or 7, because\nof [superstition](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/328/how-to-\nchoose-between-%E3%82%88%E3%82%93-yon-vs-%E3%81%97-shi-\nfor-%E5%9B%9B-4-and-%E3%81%97%E3%81%A1-shichi-vs/336#336). I think (but have\nno evidence for this) that hito and futa in hitori and futari because, well,\none person and two people are special, and they don't want to replace their\nJapanese words for it with Chinese words.\n\nAnd then there's the more or less constant part at the end of a counter.\nSometimes it's constant, such as \"ji\" in hours of the day, and sometimes it\nvaries slightly because of pronunciation, such as \"fun\" and \"pun\" in the\ncounter words for minutes.\n\nOnce I realized that there was a number part and a more or less constant part\nin counter words, I found them easier to memorize, and a bit more logical.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-21T12:55:33.880", "id": "5585", "last_activity_date": "2012-09-17T07:45:48.440", "last_edit_date": "2017-04-13T12:43:44.397", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "91", "parent_id": "5583", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "I believe the question you're trying to ask is \"why are there counter words in\nJapanese?\" (or perhaps \"why do I have to learn all these counter words?\"). It\ndoes seem kind of strange coming from English, where you can just say a\nnumber, to where you have to start using a number plus different words\ndepending on the size/shape/other characteristic of an object in order to\ncount them. I, too, once thought as you do.\n\nIs there a logic as to _why_ there are counter words in Japanese? I would say\nno more or less so than any other part of any language. It's just a rule, like\neverything else. I will say this though: It's actually not as confusing as it\nfirst seems to be. Once you get used to how counter words are used, and you\nlearn the basic ones, it just makes sense to use them in Japanese. You'll\nlearn more as you go, and just generally get a feel for it. At least in my\nexperience. You'll get to the point where if you're trying to say \"two\" when\nreferring to a couple sheets of paper, and you say \"ni\", it sounds empty and\nwrong. It's \"ni-mai\".", "comment_count": 5, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-21T16:22:26.253", "id": "5587", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-21T16:22:26.253", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "921", "parent_id": "5583", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 }, { "body": "My understanding was that originally Japanese only had the -tu and -ri endings\nfor things and people respectively. Thus, _pitotu_ , _putatu_ , _mitu_ (modern\n_hitotsu_ , _futatsu_ , _mitsu_ ) and _pitori putari_ etc. These are attested\nin very old works when _on'yomi_ had not yet become an integral part of the\nJapanese language and were used much like _garaigo_ is used now.\n\nChinese has a very messy and complicated counter system. For example, when\ntalking about animals 匹 is used for horses, donkeys, and mules (or similarly\nshaped animals, like llemas), 头 for oxen, sheep, and pigs, 条 for dogs and\nsnakes only, and 只 for all other animals.\n\nIn the case of the animal counters Japanese seems to have only borrowed 匹. 匹\nis pronounced /pi/ in Modern Chinese and /pik/ in Middle Chinese. Old Japanese\nborrowed it as /pikï/ which turned into /piki/ and then conditionally into\n/fiki/ and finally /hiki/ due to sound changes.\n\nAs for other counters, Japanese sporadically borrowed Chinese counters (using\n_on'yomi_ readings) and changed their meanings to make them more logical. For\nexample the counter 枚 (/mei/ in Chinese) in Chinese randomly refers to things\nlike cookies, pens, bombs, CDs, and other things that cannot be reliably\nplaced in a well-defined category. 本 (/ben/, MC /pon/) is a counter for\npamphlets and books but not sheets of paper. Japanese redefined the first as\nreferring to flat things and the latter to long thin things.\n\nBasically, from what I know Japanese counters used with _on'yomi_ numbers (\n_ichi ni san_ etc) are generally counters borrowed from Chinese but repurposed\nto often quite distant meanings.\n\n**Edit** : Old Japanese did not use counters the same way and the -tu and -ri\nwere rather a shorthand for the noun. \"pitotu\" would mean literally \"one\nthing\" without having a noun after it, just as \"hitori\" means \"one person\"\nstill in modern Japanese. OJ would have 一年（ひととせ） rather than the direct modern\ntranslation 一つの年（ひとつのとし）", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-12-11T03:42:04.463", "id": "9742", "last_activity_date": "2012-12-11T03:50:53.013", "last_edit_date": "2012-12-11T03:50:53.013", "last_editor_user_id": "2960", "owner_user_id": "2960", "parent_id": "5583", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "These answers have a lot of circumlocution around your actual question, which\nseemed to simply want a yes/no:\n\n**No** , while counting itself has rules with decent regularity, there is not\na formalized system for _which_ counters to use. The only \"logic\" is each\nindependent rule used to pick the right counter, and they often have\ncontradictions: 本 for pencils and trains (\"long thin objects\"), but 匹 for\nsnakes and 冊 for books.\n\nYou'll have to memorize and practice them, just like English learners with the\ndifference between a \"murder of crows\" and \"fleet of submarines.\" (Yes, that's\nnot exactly the same thing, but it is a set of \"counting words\" with no\nlogical system uniting them)", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-05-09T23:44:07.943", "id": "11859", "last_activity_date": "2013-05-09T23:44:07.943", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "271", "parent_id": "5583", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "> How would you translate this phrase into English?\n\nIt would depend on context and what I was trying to say, but something like\n\"Throw it away!\" I guess. (I am sure that Sekkei Harada had good reasons for\nwriting what he did, but this is the standard interpretation of the _surface_\nmeaning of what Joshu said -- telling a questioner who believed himself to be\nfree of attachments to discard his attachment to that belief.)\n\n> Which kanji are being used?\n\nI think in that particular piece it is written 放下着 (right to left). Why the\ndifference? 着 was actually originally a variant (\"vulgar character\", 俗字) of 著.\nI understand that in mainland Chinese only 着 is used now. Separating them into\ntwo separate characters with distinct meanings (and readings) was apparently a\nJapanese innovation. [Some more info\nhere](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%9D%80#Usage_notes); my main source for\nall this is my desktop kanji dictionary Kanji gen 漢字源 (ed. Todo 藤堂 et al,\nGakken 2002).\n\nSo, originally, 放下着 and 放下著 were just variant \"spellings\" of the same thing,\nand that last character would have been pronounced /chaku/ (or \"zháo/zhuó\"\n[depending on era, I think]) no matter how it was written. In modern Japanese\nthere is a stricter separation between 着 and 著, but since this isn't a modern\nJapanese phrase -- in fact, it's arguably a three-character \"word\" that should\nbe left as it is -- you can see both spellings if you Google them. (Some are\nfrom Chinese pages, of course.)\n\n> Is it an imperative, and if so, how is it being formed?\n\nIt is an imperative made of 放下 (\"discard\") + 著 (roughly equivalent to Japanese\nしまう if I understand it correctly). Because it's Chinese, not Japanese, there\nisn't much in the way of morphology -- the bare verb is used as the imperative\nform.\n\n(Sidebar: I'm not sure if 放下 wouldn't be better analyzed as \"discard\" + \"down\"\n-- that's clearly the etymology, but I don't know if by the time this sentence\nwas uttered these two characters had become one word.)\n\nSoundwise, /ho:ge/ is the standard reading of 放下 when used as Zen jargon, and\n/jaku/ is a voiced version of /chaku/, which is a standard reading of 著 (and\n着).\n\n> Is this something a present-day native Japanese speaker would readily\n> understand?\n\nThey would definitely not be able to understand it from \"first principles\" --\nthey would probably know the word 放下, but adding 著 after a verb is not\nmeaningful in Japanese, so that would be confusing. Only people who had\nlearned it _as_ a set phrase, probably in the context of Zen Buddhism, would\nunderstand it.\n\n(Although, if it was read to them as 放下せよ, as in your second reference, they\nwould certainly understand that.)\n\n> Is there a \"canonical\" version of the associated Zen story?\n\nThere are a few slightly different versions floating around. I'm not sure if\nany particular one can be identified as the _locus classicus_. (At any rate,\n_I_ can't make such an identification...) It does appear in the\n[趙州録](http://iriz.hanazono.ac.jp/data/zenseki_121.html), and in the English\ntranslation by James Green, The Recorded Sayings of Zen Master Joshu, it can\nbe found at #182:\n\n> A monk asked, \"What about it when I don't have anything?\" \n> Joshu replied, \"Throw it away.\"\n\nThere's also a footnote:\n\n> In the Compendium of the Five Lamps (Wu-teng Hui-yuan; Goto Egen) the\n> questioner was Yen-yang Tsun-su (Ganyo Sonshoku), who was one of the heirs\n> of Chao-chou (Joshu). In the Compendium it is recorded that he goes on to\n> say, \"I do not have anything, what is there to throw away?\" Chao-chou\n> (Joshu) then said, \"In that case, take it away with you.\" At these words\n> Yen-yang was enlightened.\n\n[Here's the Chinese original of one\nversion](http://taipei.ddbc.edu.tw/sutra/JB241_003.php), punctuated by me:\n\n> 僧問趙州、一物不將來時如何。州云、放下著。僧云、一物不將來放下箇甚麼。州云、放不下擔取去。", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-21T15:26:56.213", "id": "5586", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-22T12:14:41.543", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-22T12:14:41.543", "last_editor_user_id": "531", "owner_user_id": "531", "parent_id": "5584", "post_type": "answer", "score": 10 }, { "body": "In the initial pages of his Ore Giapponesi (English title: Meeting with Japan,\n1961), Fosco Maraini mentions 'hoge jaku' and says that it can be translated\nas 'lìberati dall'attaccamento alle cose inutili', roughly 'free yourself from\n(get rid of) attachment to useless things'. I read the book 30 years ago and\nstill remember that expression and his translation.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2017-10-29T14:06:40.013", "id": "54128", "last_activity_date": "2017-10-29T14:06:40.013", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "26312", "parent_id": "5584", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "After a bit of poking around, it looks like you're looking for 「[数]{かず}」 and\n[「[助数詞]{じょすうし}」](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%8A%A9%E6%95%B0%E8%A9%9E).", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-21T21:58:34.757", "id": "5589", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-21T21:58:34.757", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "22", "parent_id": "5588", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 }, { "body": "The first part is called 基数詞 (cardinal number) or (as pointed out by Tsuyoshi\nIto) 数詞 (numeral). The second part is called (as Ignacio correctly notes) 助数詞\n(classifier). Cf.\n[Wikipedia](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%95%B0%E8%A9%9E).", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-24T14:23:45.783", "id": "5613", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-24T14:59:16.137", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-24T14:59:16.137", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "5588", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "[Nico Nico](http://dic.nicovideo.jp/a/%E3%83%8E%E3%82%B7) actually calls it\n顔文字. (And so do other places like\n[here](http://www.relief.jp/itnote/archives/001837.php).)\n\n**Edit** : There is, perhaps, some crossover, but 絵文字 more broadly refers to\nthings like\n[pictograms](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%94%E3%82%AF%E3%83%88%E3%82%B0%E3%83%A9%E3%83%A0)\n(pictures with meaning), while 顔文字 refers to...well,\n[顔文字](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%A1%94%E6%96%87%E5%AD%97) (characters\nput together to make faces).", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-22T01:12:32.957", "id": "5591", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-22T04:37:37.723", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-22T04:37:37.723", "last_editor_user_id": "1365", "owner_user_id": "1365", "parent_id": "5590", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "Generally (barring situations like\n[this](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/5280/why-does-furigana-\noccasionally-appear-as-katakana/5283#5283)) all furigana are written as\nhiragana, regardless of whether it's the onyomi or kunyomi of the character.\n\nYou could think about it this way: there's nothing **grammatically** wrong\nwith writing a word like `にち` in hiragana rather than kanji. `ニチ`, on the\nother hand, would be ungrammatical (or at least non-standard). When writing\nfurigana one writes whatever would replace the kanji if the document were to\nbe re-written without using any kanji.\n\nAlso since there seemed to be confusion between ruby/furigana, I believe ruby\nis the general word for pronunciation advice/other info printed in a small\nfont above or beside some characters/text. Furigana is the word used to\nspecifically describe Japanese ruby. For most students of Japanese (and\nprobably Japanese people) furigana is a more recognisable, common word to use.", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-22T08:01:15.747", "id": "5593", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-22T08:16:26.023", "last_edit_date": "2017-04-13T12:43:44.207", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "1272", "parent_id": "5592", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "Take a look at <http://gogen-allguide.com/to/donchansawagi.html>\n\nIn summary, どんちゃん is the sound of drums and gongs accompanying a battle scene\nin Japanese classical drama.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-22T17:53:51.683", "id": "5595", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-22T17:53:51.683", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "542", "parent_id": "5594", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "As ジョン said, 今なにしてる could be written as 今何してる. However, I can think of two\nplausible reasons why they write 今なにしてる instead of 今何してる.\n\nFirst, hiragana gives more informal and casual impression than kanji. I do not\nknow the overall tone of text used on Facebook, but I assume that it is quite\ninformal, judging from the colloquial expression してる (instead of している), so\nwriting なに in hiragana is aligned with this casual atmosphere they want to\ngive.\n\nSecond, some people prefer to avoid writing two kanji letters in a row when\nthey do not form one word, because two kanji letters suggest that they form a\n[Sino-Japanese word](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Japanese_vocabulary).\nCompare 今何してる to 勉強してる and notice that 今何 may look like one word, especially\nif you are not paying attention.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-23T12:13:03.110", "id": "5598", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-23T12:13:03.110", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "15", "parent_id": "5596", "post_type": "answer", "score": 13 }, { "body": "Other answers are correct, I just want to add one more thing:\n\nMy gut feeling is that なに is sometimes likely to be written in hiragana\nbecause it's a simple interrogative word. Most (simple) interrogative words,\nlike どれ, なぜ, どう, いつ, どこ either do not have kanji renditions or their kanji\nrenditions are rarely used. The same can be said for other simple determiners,\nlike これ, この etc.\n\nだれ does have a commonly used kanji rendition, but I claim that for the same\nreason as なに, it's sometimes likely to be written in hiragana.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-24T01:21:14.373", "id": "5599", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-24T01:21:14.373", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1073", "parent_id": "5596", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "They have pretty much different meanings. `中心に` adds blur. It means `centered\naround`. `めぐって` means 'regarding', and implies some kind of a debate. They are\nin general not interchangable.\n\n> 駅を中心に沢山の商店が集まっている \n> 'many stores are gathered around the the station' \n> More literally: 'many stores are gathered with its center being the\n> station'\n>\n> 駅をめぐって沢山の商店が集まっている \n> 'many store (owner)s are gathered {regarding, to talk about} the station'\n>\n> 選挙(の時期)を中心に候補者をリクルートする \n> 'hire candidates mostly at around the time of an election' \n> More literally: 'hire candidates with its center being the time of an\n> election'\n>\n> 選挙をめぐって候補者をリクルートする \n> 'hire candidates {regarding, for} an election'", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-24T03:48:24.570", "id": "5602", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-24T03:58:42.367", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-24T03:58:42.367", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "5601", "post_type": "answer", "score": 11 }, { "body": "In additions to what @sawa said, I think it's easy to keep straight if you\nremember the verb `めぐる` has the meanings of \"going around\" or \"surrounding\".\nThus, `～をめぐって／～をめぐり／～をめぐる` usually has at least a slight negative meaning (as\n@sawa stated) usually about some debate, controversy, etc.\n\nHere are a couple examples. (I'm going to expand on one of @sawa's because I\nfeel it's a little too vague to be helpful to you -- no offense to @sawa).\n\n> * 駅の改築 **をめぐって** 近くの店主がたくさん集まってデモる。 → Many of the nearby store owners will\n> gather and protest the reconstruction of the station (protest surrounding\n> the reconstruction of the station\n> * 大統領の経済政策 **をめぐり** 色々な対立する意見があります。 → There are many opposing opinions\n> surrounding/concerning the President's economic policies.\n> * 資源の利用 **をめぐる** 争いがようやく解決に向かった。 → The dispute about/surrounding the\n> resource usage is finally headed toward a solution.\n>\n\nAs far as the sentence you provided, the controversy is that there are\nobviously some people who hold the opinion that a political parties only exist\nto get the upper hand in an election (by doing the things listed), instead of\nfocusing on meeting the peoples' needs.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-24T04:52:23.043", "id": "5603", "last_activity_date": "2013-08-16T01:53:07.190", "last_edit_date": "2013-08-16T01:53:07.190", "last_editor_user_id": "78", "owner_user_id": "78", "parent_id": "5601", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 }, { "body": "を中心に: focusing primarily on\n\nExample usage:\n\n> we discussed life at school, the main point of the discussion being the\n> well-being of students.\n>\n\n>> 生徒の福祉を中心に、学生の日常生活を議論した。\n\nをめぐって: discussing something/about (often to show the motivation of the\ndebate/argument/fight)\n\nExample usage:\n\n> They fought with one another for this girl.\n>\n\n>> 彼女をめぐって喧嘩した。\n\nIf you remember that the fight for the girl (or boy, whatever) is a typical\nuse of めぐって, you should confidently be able to use/understand it properly.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-25T07:11:57.987", "id": "5628", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-31T00:25:30.680", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-31T00:25:30.680", "last_editor_user_id": "356", "owner_user_id": "356", "parent_id": "5601", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "You can see [my answer](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/2199/11104) to\nthe [question that Flaw\nasked](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/2197/%E3%81%AB-\nand-%E3%81%A7-revisited), but I will state it again.\n\n * に is used when what the predicate means involves the location and will not make sense without it. Examples are: when someone/something is located somewhere (いる, ある), lives somewhere (住む), goes somewhere (行く), commutes to somewhere (通勤する, 通学する, 勤める, 通う), etc., the very meaning expressed by the predicate necessarily involves the notion of place.\n\n * で is used when the location is not necessary to express the meaning of the predicate. For example, reading, running, studying, etc. do not require the notion of location to express their meaning. Of course, the agent needs to be at some location in order to do these things, but that just follows from our encyclopedic knowledge about the world, and is irrelevant to the description of the meaning of these predicates.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-07-28T23:41:30.253", "id": "6304", "last_activity_date": "2015-10-10T15:23:53.740", "last_edit_date": "2017-04-13T12:43:44.157", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "5604", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 } ]

[ { "body": "Japanese does have cleft (and pseudo-cleft) constructions that you mention.\n\n> 元彼/彼女が放火、殺人に加えて信号無視で終身刑になったと知って安堵した。(Underlying)\n>\n> 元彼/彼女が終身刑になった理由が放火、殺人に加えて信号無視だったと知って安堵した。(Embedded cleft)\n>\n> 私が(それを)知ることで安堵したのは、元彼/彼女が終身刑になった理由が放火、殺人に加えて信号無視だったことだ。(Matrix cleft)\n\nBut with these orders, it still does not sound funny to most Japanese. They\njust sound like American jokes, whose quality are very different from those of\nJapanese commedy.\n\nOther than this, Japanese, among many other languages, have scrambling and\ntopicalization.", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-24T09:03:47.503", "id": "5607", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-24T14:02:15.343", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T08:18:27.500", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "5605", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 }, { "body": "[Anastrophe](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anastrophe) exists in Japanese:\n\n> Usual order: 前の彼女が放火、殺人、信号無視の罪で終身刑になったと知って安心した。 \n> Anastrophe: 前の彼女が終身刑になったと知って安心した。放火、殺人、信号無視の罪で。\n\n(Note about the word 終身刑: Strictly speaking, 終身刑 means life imprisonment\n_without parole_ , and the usual life imprisonment with a possibility of\nparole is technically called\n[無期刑](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%84%A1%E6%9C%9F%E5%88%91). However, in\nnontechnical context, 終身刑 often means both.)", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-24T12:37:35.280", "id": "5610", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-24T12:37:35.280", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "15", "parent_id": "5605", "post_type": "answer", "score": 10 } ]

[ { "body": "未来 is the more general term. 将来 is about future with particular focus on\nsomeone's carrier in life, or a master plan of some institution, place,\nproduct, etc.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-24T09:14:55.563", "id": "5608", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-24T09:14:55.563", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "5606", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "Yes, it does include the verb.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-24T13:13:27.903", "id": "5612", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-24T13:13:27.903", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1065", "parent_id": "5609", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "> For example, when someone says \"映画を見たりしたの。\"\n\nWhatever the interpretation is, the sentence is incorrect. Proper Japanese\nrequires you to use at least two verbs with 〜たり form. It's similar to saying\n\"on the one hand\", but never saying \"on the other hand.\"\n\nIf you want to say\n\n> I watched movie. And besides that, I did other stuff.``\n\nthen say it. I guess you could go with something along\n`映画を見たし。そして、まあ、それ以外色々したよね。` Here, the \"し\" is what you often use to link to\nactions as in \"I did this and I did that.\" By ending your sentence with it,\nyou give a feeling of \"and then some other things I don't bother mention.\"\n\nNow, supposing you have `A1したり、A2したり、...、Anしたりしました`, then, you state that you\ndid _at least_ things A1 to An. Maybe more, certainly not less. Why? Because\nyou wrote \"しました\" which is an assertion.\n\nYet, what you could say, is \"本を読んだり、テレビを見たりしても、かまいません。\" meaning \"You could\nread books or watch the telly, I don't care.\" I'm not ordering you to do them,\nI say that you can do any. The difference comes from \"かまいません\".\n\nTo sum up: たり just lists some unordered actions. What you do with these\nactions depends on what you state after the list.", "comment_count": 5, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-25T07:04:49.693", "id": "5627", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-25T07:50:00.513", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-25T07:50:00.513", "last_editor_user_id": "356", "owner_user_id": "356", "parent_id": "5609", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "The same construct can be used with other nouns (but not every noun):\n\n * 緊縮 **を条件に** 支援を受ける to receive aid on the condition of austerity\n * 結婚 **を前提に** 交際する to go out with a person seriously with the idea of getting married\n * 利用者の意見 **を参考に** 使い勝手を改善する to improve usability taking the feedback from users into account\n * 駅 **を中心に** たくさんの商店が集まっている。 Centered around the station there are many stores. (This example is based on an example in “[The meaning of and difference between ～を中心に and ～をめぐって](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/5601/the-meaning-of-and-difference-between-%EF%BD%9E%E3%82%92%E4%B8%AD%E5%BF%83%E3%81%AB-and-%EF%BD%9E%E3%82%92%E3%82%81%E3%81%90%E3%81%A3%E3%81%A6)” by cypher.)\n\nIn these examples, as istrasci wrote in a comment on the question, we could\ninsert して after に. (I do not know if the version with して is the original form\nand the version without して is a contraction of it or not.) However, in the\nfollowing similar-looking examples, this is not the case, so I am not sure if\nthis captures the essence of the construct:\n\n * 来月中旬 **を[目処]{めど}に** この仕事を終わらせます。 I will finish this work by about the middle of next month. (This example is based on an example in [Progressive Japanese-English Dictionary](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?p=%E3%82%81%E3%81%A9&stype=0&dtype=3&dname=2na).)\n * オリンピック **を最後に** 引退する to retire with the Olympic Games as the last event", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-24T21:43:58.920", "id": "5617", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-25T13:04:43.277", "last_edit_date": "2017-04-13T12:43:44.260", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "15", "parent_id": "5615", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "This isn't a dumb question at all! For the most part, you do have to modify\nthe number, you can't just say it by itself. You can't ask for just two\nbottles of beer, you have to add the counter (ほん) or use `ふたつ`.\n\nOne scenario where you can just use the numbers is if you're just counting for\nthe sake of counting. Like, for example, you're counting jumping jacks as you\ndo them you'd go \"いち！に！さん！し！．．．．\" and so on. Or, if you're trying to count how\nmany people there are in a room, you might say just the numbers in your head\nor out loud. In the end however, you need to use the counter (にん) if you\nwanted to tell someone the total.", "comment_count": 7, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-24T23:07:11.573", "id": "5618", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-24T23:07:11.573", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "921", "parent_id": "5616", "post_type": "answer", "score": 9 }, { "body": "Another case where numbers are used by themselves is telephone numbers.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-26T21:57:18.413", "id": "5630", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-26T21:57:18.413", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "91", "parent_id": "5616", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 } ]

[ { "body": "It means both, depending on context. Remember that translation between two\nlanguages is rarely one to one.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-25T00:23:48.470", "id": "5620", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-25T00:23:48.470", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "15", "parent_id": "5619", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 }, { "body": "Based on the anime that I've seen, when a character uses ちがいます in essence what\nthey are saying (in a nutshell) is: `No, what you said is different from what\nI said/thought/felt, therefore it is wrong/not correct.`\n\nNormally, this is just expressed/translated as: You're wrong, He's wrong,\nShe's wrong, or It's wrong. Depending on the context.", "comment_count": 11, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-25T01:02:58.870", "id": "5621", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-26T20:11:52.747", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-26T20:11:52.747", "last_editor_user_id": "769", "owner_user_id": "769", "parent_id": "5619", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 }, { "body": "By saying `ちがいます` the speaker intends to convey:\n\n> \"The situation/case/concept that I think you are thinking of is\n> **different** from the situation/case/concept I believe I am currently\n> experiencing\".\n\nThis underlying meaning can be translated to a variety of English expressions\nnot limited to \"no\" or \"you're/(s)he's/it's/that's wrong\".", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-25T05:14:00.830", "id": "5626", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-25T05:14:00.830", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "542", "parent_id": "5619", "post_type": "answer", "score": 14 }, { "body": "> 私 の 観点 は あなた の と は 違います。 \n> _watashi no kanten wa anata no to wa chigaimasu._ \n> My point of view and (also) yours are not the same.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2016-02-07T22:43:00.090", "id": "31004", "last_activity_date": "2016-02-08T12:49:22.820", "last_edit_date": "2016-02-08T12:49:22.820", "last_editor_user_id": "1628", "owner_user_id": "11261", "parent_id": "5619", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 }, { "body": "This is interesting. 違う was originally written as 違ふ. And, in 10th century,\nthe meaning was slightly different. The original meaning was\n\n> 互いに交差したり行き違ったりする (Two things intersect with each other. Two people try to go\n> to each other's place and fail to meet.)\n> <http://kobun.weblio.jp/content/%E3%81%A1%E3%81%8C%E3%81%B5>\n\nThere were several derived meanings such as \"fail to meet. avoid to meet. go\nto a wrong direction. make something different. change something. disobey.\nbeing different.\"\n\n* * *\n\nAccording to this dictionary, デジタル大辞泉\n<https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%81%95%E3%81%86-559103> ,\n\nthe first meaning is still used in compound verbs such as\n\n> 行き違う (Two people try to go to each other's place and fail to meet.)\n>\n> すれ違う (pass each other.)\n\nBut, they are now the fifth meaning on 大辞林.\n\nOther meanings are follows.\n\n1 . a \"being different\"\n\n * 習慣が違う。 (The customs are different.)\n\n1 . b \"There is a gap. being better comparing to others.\"\n\n * 格が違う。 (being in a better class.)\n\n2 . \"What someone expected or thought is different from the current\nsituation.\"\n\n * 話が違う。 (The things you told me were different from the current situation.)\n * 約束と違う。 (The promise is not kept.)\n\n3 . \"being wrong.\"\n\n * 計算が違う。 (The calculation is wrong.)\n\n4 . \"Not in the right position.\"\n\n * 筋が違う。 (getting a crick. (The muscle is not in the right position.))\n * 気が違う。 (being mad. (The mind is not in the right position.))\n\nIt seems that their basic idea is \"fail to meet.\"\n\n* * *\n\nBack to the original question, it means no. And,「いいえ、違います。」 is one of the most\nappropriate way (in elementary school) to answer no.\n\nI think 違う (違います ちゃう ちげー) are used more than いいえ to say no.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2016-02-08T12:46:59.230", "id": "31015", "last_activity_date": "2016-02-08T12:46:59.230", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "8010", "parent_id": "5619", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "Are you sure it wasn't\n[`ワンマン`](http://eow.alc.co.jp/%E3%83%AF%E3%83%B3%E3%83%9E%E3%83%B3/UTF-8/), a\nword which apparently would mean [\"one-man operation/driver-only operation/one\nperson operation\"](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-man_operation) in this\ncontext? (in other contexts `ワンマン` can mean \"dictator\" or \"autocrat\".)\n\n**Edit:** Fixed definition.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-25T04:37:53.070", "id": "5623", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-25T04:48:56.177", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-25T04:48:56.177", "last_editor_user_id": "796", "owner_user_id": "796", "parent_id": "5622", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 }, { "body": "This is probably `ワンマン` (note `ン` instead of `ソ`). `ワンマン` is wasei-eigo from\n\"one man\". For example, `ワンマンショー` (one man show), or `ワンマンライブ` (meaning a live\nperformance with just one band, not necessarily one person).\n\nIn the context of buses, `ワンマン` means that a bus is being operated by a driver\nalone, with no conductor (i.e. every bus nowadays). It used to be a rule to\nhave this sign if there was no conductor.\n\nSo this is not a phrase (\"one man doorway\"), but a two-purpose sign showing\nthe doorway and stating that the bus is `ワンマン`.\n\nOf course, this being FLCL it's possible that it actually **does** say `ワソマソ`,\nas a joke. A Google search reveals that it is sometimes used jokingly.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-25T04:50:52.623", "id": "5625", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-25T05:13:37.947", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-25T05:13:37.947", "last_editor_user_id": "1272", "owner_user_id": "1272", "parent_id": "5622", "post_type": "answer", "score": 18 }, { "body": "I have been on small trains (most recently: [Eizan\nrailway](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eizan_Electric_Railway) in Kyoto) that\nindeed bear messages along the line of 'ワンマン', followed by information on\nhow/where to board/alight the train (the 出入口 part).\n\nFor example, Eiden asks passengers to exit through the front door, due to the\ntrain being 'ワンマン'.\n\nEiden translates `ワンマン` as `conductorless` (a somewhat ungrammatical but\neasily understandable word). In absence of a conductor, the train still\nusually has one person driving and/or attending to the doors and tickets.\n\nAlthough all the other meanings mentioned in this thread are valid\ntranslations of this term, given context, I think \"conductorless\" (or\nequivalent) is the most likely one.", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-27T04:41:07.473", "id": "5634", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-28T12:21:43.257", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-28T12:21:43.257", "last_editor_user_id": "290", "owner_user_id": "290", "parent_id": "5622", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "It is a compound of English \"back\" and German \"schön\" (\"beautiful\").", "comment_count": 6, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-27T01:10:15.133", "id": "5632", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-27T01:10:15.133", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1141", "parent_id": "5631", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "-zu is a negative particle. It is equivalent to the negative -nai. kusarasezu ni means \"without letting [it, the food] rot\".", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-27T04:43:47.690", "id": "5635", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-27T04:43:47.690", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1141", "parent_id": "5633", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 }, { "body": "ず is actually a 助動詞 to make a verb negative. It originates in classical\nJapanese. In earlier times, 知らず was written as 不知 (same as in classical\nChinese) literally, not+know.\n\nFrequently used is 残らず、知らず、せず（する）", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-27T21:07:54.980", "id": "5644", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-27T21:07:54.980", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1386", "parent_id": "5633", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "> I am not sure about whether there is supposed to be a space on either side\n> of the ~ symbol, or whether the symbol should be on both sides or one side.\n> Is there a clear mentioning of this usage?\n\nIt depends on the style guide. However, most style guides I have found\nrecommend putting the symbol with no spaces on either just the front or both\nsides.\n\n> In other languages I know, colon : is used for this purpose, and it looks\n> very peculiar of Japanese to use this symbol for this purpose. Is this only\n> in Japanese? How did the usage arise?\n\nIt probably is only used in Japanese (however, I cannot vouch for all\nlanguages). I believe what you are seeing is the corrupt form of the\n[２倍ダッシ(ダッシュ)](http://www.fukapon.com/showcase/misc/font2xdash.html). I think\nthat the `〜` symbol should not be used in more formal writing. As for the\norigin, the\n[国語審議会](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%9B%BD%E8%AA%9E%E5%AF%A9%E8%AD%B0%E4%BC%9A)\nis responsible for deciding the usage of punctuation in Japan (or at least the\nbasis for all punctuation). Please refer to\n[くぎり符号の使ひ方](http://www.bunka.go.jp/kokugo_nihongo/joho/kijun/sanko/index.html)\nfrom 1946 for the origin of the 2倍ダッシュ which was called ナカセン.\n\nSome quotes:\n\n * > 2倍ダッシュは，副題の前後につける．また，文章中に割り込むかたちで注釈を入れるときに丸カッコ（ ）の代わりに用いてもよい．ただし，―（全角ダッシュ1つ）のかたちでは使用しない．[(reference)](http://www.gakkai.ne.jp/jss/bulletin/guide1.php).\n\n * > 書名にサブタイトルがあるときは，タイトルとサブタイトルのあいだは，――（2倍ダッシュ）でつなぐ．[(reference)](http://www.kyy.saitama-u.ac.jp/~fukuoka/JSRstyle%284%29.html).", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-28T03:03:38.980", "id": "5650", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-28T03:03:38.980", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1217", "parent_id": "5636", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "The best way to request anything in Japanese (in Japan, to Japanese) is to say\nas little as possible and to leave as much wiggle room as possible.\n\nI think you want [読]{よ}み[方]{かた} 'way of reading' when you have kanji to point\nat, and [書]{か}き方 'way of writing' when you have sound. 'Spelling' is not safe\nto use because there are so many ways to be wrong with kanji.\n\nOf course always start with the usual self deprecating set-pieces about how\nstupid you are and how difficult Japanese is. You may think you don't have to\ndo this with friends and colleagues, but this is part of friendliness and good\nmanners.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-31T01:06:31.760", "id": "5700", "last_activity_date": "2012-07-18T05:47:14.947", "last_edit_date": "2012-07-18T05:47:14.947", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1345", "parent_id": "5637", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 }, { "body": "The generally used word in Japanese for \"spelling\" is certainly 「スペル」, but I\ndon't think this helps. In English \"spelling\" applies to latin letter\nlanguages, particularly with irregular orthography, like English and French;\nit also obviously applies to languages like Russian with a different alphabet.\nI think it is also reasonable to use it for cases like the Japanese title of\n[the Ghibli film \"Only\nyesterday\"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Only_Yesterday_%281991_film%29)\nwhere the old \"spelling\" おもひで is used for ''omoide''. But for all other cases,\nI think it is best to avoid the word \"spell(ing)\" in English too.\n\nIf you are asking about how to write a word: どういう[書]{か}き[方]｛かた}ですか？ or perhaps\nasking which kanji to use: どんな[字]{じ}ですか？ If someone introduces herself as\n「けいこです」 you might ask, 「どんな字ですか」 and expect something like 「めぐみのケイ、こどものコ」. Of\ncourse if you don't understand which 「ケイ」 is meant by 「めぐみ」 you may have to\nask for more help: 「ちょっと、[書]{か}いてくれますか？」 assuming you have paper and pen\navailable.\n\nRemember that there are other questions: for example,\n「[鳥]{とり}の[書]{か}き[順]{じゅん}は、どんなでしょうか？」 to ask about stroke order. There are also\nother answers: if you are on the stage, and have just learned that 「どんちょう」\nmeans the main front curtain, you might ask 「どんちょうというのは、どんな字ですか？」 but you\nshould also be prepared for answers like 「カタカナでいいでしょう？」\n\n(This isn't strictly the equivalent of \"spelling\" but...) If you have\nsomething written, and can't read it: 「これは、[何]{なん}と[読]{よ}みますか？」", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2016-01-08T13:01:54.383", "id": "30294", "last_activity_date": "2016-01-08T13:52:42.593", "last_edit_date": "2016-01-08T13:52:42.593", "last_editor_user_id": "9831", "owner_user_id": "7717", "parent_id": "5637", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "I've just always asked...\n\n書いてくれませんか？ (Could you please write it down for me?)\n\n入力してくれませんか？ (Could you please type it out for me?)\n\nこの言葉をゆっくり話してください。(Please say this word slowly.)\n\nひらがなで書いてくれませんか？ (Could you please write it in hiragana for me?)\n\nI agree with everyone here in that 綴る seems a bit unnatural to use for\nJapanese itself. I asked my one friend how they \"spell\" in Japanese and he\nlooked at me like I had five heads. Haha. So, it seems more common to just\nsound out words slowly or just write them down.\n\nEDIT: I found if you want the word in Roman letters, just ask...\n\nローマ字で書いてくれませんか？ (Could you please write it in Roomaji for me?)\n\nI imagine if you ask them to say it in Roomaji that they'd start spelling with\nthe A, B, C, stuff. Try it. Hah.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2016-01-09T03:07:02.300", "id": "30311", "last_activity_date": "2016-01-09T03:12:20.560", "last_edit_date": "2016-01-09T03:12:20.560", "last_editor_user_id": "12000", "owner_user_id": "12000", "parent_id": "5637", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 }, { "body": "You can just say 'なんて書くの？'? or ’どうやって書くの？’ - it's like 'hows it written? / how\ndo you write it?'\n\nYou don't really 'spell' kanji.", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2016-01-09T03:32:07.653", "id": "30313", "last_activity_date": "2016-01-09T03:32:07.653", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "12106", "parent_id": "5637", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "It's common to drop particles in casual speak when there's no ambiguity about\nwhat is being said. But strictly speaking, it's not \"correct\" to drop the\nparticle there.\n\nAlso, 好き is a な-adjective, not a verb.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-27T11:19:23.103", "id": "5639", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-27T11:19:23.103", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1173", "parent_id": "5638", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "You are right in that\n[すら](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8&p=%E3%81%99%E3%82%89&dtype=0&dname=0ss&stype=0&pagenum=1&index=110536600000)\nis often used with negation, but I do not think that it is a hard rule. For\nexample,\n\n> 彼はドッグフードすら食べる。 He eats even dog food.\n\nBut in general, the use of すら itself is rare in the modern Japanese, and さえ is\nused more often.\n\n(By the way, I am not sure if you understand the meaning of 涙すら出ない correctly.\nYour translation suggests that you consider that it means something like “not\nsad enough to weep,” but it usually means “too shocked to weep.”)", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-27T15:48:11.707", "id": "5641", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-27T15:48:11.707", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "15", "parent_id": "5640", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "I don't believe a definitive answer to your question is possible. That said,\nyou asked what people think, so a couple of my own thoughts:\n\nWhen reading out URLs (arguably now the most common use of `W` in modern\nJapanese), `ダブリューダブリューダブリュードット` would be a real mouthful, so it's often\npronounced `ダブルダブルダブルドット` or even `ダブダブダブドット`. It's possible that this has\ncontributed to the abbreviated pronunciation.\n\nI don't know if you'll agree with this, but I find that the transliteration of\nborrow-words is very prone to change and evolution over time for convenience\nor what have you. The meaning \"double\" on fast food menus etc is probably the\nsecond most common use of `W` in modern Japanese. Presuming this use came\nfirst, this could also have influenced a change in the general pronunciation.\n\nAlternatively, as you say, the English pronunciation of `W` comes from\n`double-U`, so you could say the most \"correct\" transliteration would be not\n`ダブリュー` but `ダブル・ユー`. `ダブル` would be a sane abbreviation of this, just like\nmany 和製英語 are informally abbreviated, purely for the sake of brevity.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-27T22:00:14.807", "id": "5647", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-27T22:00:14.807", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1272", "parent_id": "5642", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 }, { "body": "I believe this may an example of what is called a volatile pronunciation. Take\na look at what is happening phonemically: \n\n 1. ダブリュー → ダブル\n 2. /dabu **ɾjuː** / → /dabu **ɾu** /\n\nUsing the description in\n[Vance(2008)](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0521617545) of long\nvowels:\n\n> Japanese vowel length distinctions don't have a very high functional load;\n> at any given point in a conversation mistakenly pronouncing a long vowel as\n> a short vowel or vice versa is very unlikely to result in something that a\n> listener could interpret as a plausible alternative utterance.\n\nAnd most relevant to the above alternation:\n\n> Word-final long vowels are conspicuously susceptible to shortening, although\n> the explanation for this tendency isn't clear.\n\nVance gives two good examples of this:\n\n 1. コンピューター → コンピュータ\n 2. 本当 → ほんと\n\nThese facts would explain the long vowel drop of ダブリュー but doesn't yet account\nfor why the palatalization /j/ is also dropped in /ɾjuː/ → /ɾu/ since an\nalternation of the form /ɾjuː/ → /ɾju/ would not result in a phonotactic\ninfringement.\n\nI think one way to explain the /ɾjuː/ → /ɾju/ is by taking a risk and\ngeneralizing or extrapolating Vance's implicit suspicions above to stipulate\nthat:\n\n 1. Functional loads are a criteria in phonological processes. Namely, the lower the functional load the more susceptible to a (non-mandatory) phonological alternation \n 2. Word-final vowel shortening process can extend to certain semi-vowels. (Note that the palatalized /j/ of /ɾjuː/ is a semi-vowel)\n\nWhich, taking these as assumptions, the admissibility of /ɾjuː/ → /ɾju/ might\nbe predicated on:\n\n 1. The alternation /ɾju/ → /ɾu/ has a low functional load\n 2. Palatalized semi-vowels in word-final mora are in the class of semi-vowels referenced above\n\nI would love for someone to comment with more insight on what Vance might be\nalluding to. I suspect I just haven't read deep enough into Japanese\nphonology. \n \nAs for orthographic discrepancies, I truly cannot understand what you are\nasking. Native orthographic transcriptions can be notoriously volatile, and is\nof rather specialized concern. If you absolutely need an explicit\ncorrespondence, I would just advice the following function: \nf({ダブル,ダブリュー})={W} with f-1({U})⊈{ダブル,ダブリュー}", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-06-22T03:16:47.093", "id": "5945", "last_activity_date": "2012-06-22T03:16:47.093", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1454", "parent_id": "5642", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "Let's look at some examples:\n\n> [彼女]{かのじょ}はめっちゃかわいい。(だから/それで)[男性]{だんせい}に[人気]{にんき}がある。\n\nIn the above post, I think you could use either だから or それで. So in some\nsituations they are interchangeable. However, I think the underlying meaning\nis slightly different. When you use だから, it puts a strong emphasis on the\nreason why, also it has more of a tendency to be a result of personal opinion.\nOn the other hand, それで can be thought of as \"naturally forming\" from the\nreason. Let's try to translate the above sentences which show the difference:\n\n> (だから) **The** reason (I think) she is popular with guys is because she is so\n> cute.\n>\n> (それで)She is so cute. That's why (it naturally follows that) she is popular\n> with guys.\n\nIn my first translation, I emphasized `The` because だから puts an emphasis on\nthe reason why. Also, I put \"I think\" in parentheses because だから can also\nimply that it is your opinion. As for それで, I put \"it naturally follows that\"\nin parentheses because it can imply that. However, I should mention that these\nnuances are much more subtle than how I expressed them.\n\n> もう[時間]{じかん}がないんだ。(○だから/×それで)急ごう。\n>\n> ここは[危]{あぶ}ない。(○だから/×それで)入ってはいけない。\n\nIn the above sentences, それで cannot be used. The reason why is because the それで\ncannot be used with expressions that are commands or put a strong emphasis on\nthe reason why. So, from this, we can infer that だから has a much more broader\nmeaning than それで. However, even though だから has a broader meaning, you may hear\nそれで more often because in Japanese culture people tend to avoid expressions\nthat put a strong emphasis on one's own opinion, etc. (your mileage may vary\nthough).\n\nAs for the differences between ですから and だから, です is just a more polite form\nthan だ. However, それで and それでは have completely different meanings. You use それでは\n(and the more colloquial それじゃ) for the following:\n\n 1. Saying goodbye: \n\n> それではお元気で\n\n 2. Expressing a decision or opinion based usually on something previously mentioned by the person you are talking to:\n\n> Aさん：[風邪]{かぜ}[引]{ひ}いちゃった。Bさん：それじゃいけないね。\n\n 3. When beginning or ending something (like a meeting or something).\n\n> それでは始めます。\n\n(This list is not exhaustive.)", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-28T00:46:41.883", "id": "5649", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-28T00:46:41.883", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1217", "parent_id": "5643", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "出る means \"leaving out of a bounded/surrounded area\". 去る means \"leave to a\nremote place\" and often implies \"leaving for permanent\". Also から sounds more\nnatural than を with 去る.\n\n * For your sentence 1 and 2, I think they are equally fine.\n * I feel sentence 4 a bit unnatural compared to sentence 3. Perhaps this is because 店 is not as strongly a place as are 国 and そこ. Rather it is a building (with surrounding walls), so 出る sounds better. Also 店を去ると would not mean \"when I stepped out of the store\". It rather means \"after I walked far enough from the store\".\n * For sentence 5 and 6, using 去って means \"leaving the section that has the particular electronic thing\"; using 出て means \"leaving the building\".", "comment_count": 5, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-27T21:45:21.997", "id": "5646", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-27T22:04:20.250", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-27T22:04:20.250", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "5645", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "I think ものですから/もんですから/もんだから/ものだから/だもの/だもん can all be used to state a reason or\nexcuse. (暑い)ものですから sounds very polite and a bit feminine (and maybe elegant\ntoo). (暑い)ものですから sounds more polite than (暑い)もんですから. (暑い)もんですから doesn't sound\nfeminine or masculine to me. (道が混んでいた)もんだから sounds more casual than\n(道が混んでいた)ものですから/もんですから. Hmm maybe ものだから sounds a bit more feminine than もんだから\nin casual conversation. I think ものだから is not used so often as もんだから. \nSo... you can rephrase them as 「上着(を)脱いでもいい？暑いもん(orの)だから。」(more casual than\nyour example)「遅くなってすみません。道が混んでいたもの(orん)ですから。」(more polite than your example) \n \nI think (知らなかったん)だもの sounds a bit more feminine than (知らなかったん)だもん. \nYou can also say; \n知らなかったもん(sounds more casual and maybe a bit more blunt than 知らなかったんだもん)/ \n知らなかったもの(sounds a bit more feminine than 知らなかったもん)/ \n子どもなんだもの(sounds more feminine than 子どもなんだもん)/ \n子どもだもん(sounds a bit more blunt and maybe more childish than 子どもなんだもん). \n \n(BTW if you want to sound more elegant and feminine, you can say\n「パーティには行きませんでしたわ。知らなかったんですもの。」「しかたありませんわ。子どもなんですもの。」) \n \nEdit: Wait... now I think you're asking if the first set (~ものだから) and the\nsecond set (~だもの) are interchangeable, and how these two differ from each\nother...? \n \n1「上着、脱いでもいい？暑いんだもの/暑いんだもん」 \n2「遅くなってごめん。道が混んでいたんだもん」 \n3-a「パーティーには行かなかったよ。知らなかったもんだから。」 \nb「パーティーには行きませんでした。知らなかったものですから。」 \n4-a「しょうがありません。子供なものですから。」 \nb「しょうがないよ。子どもなもんだから」 \n \n1 sounds fine to me, but I would rather say 「上着、脱ぐわ。(だって)暑いんだもん。」2 also sounds\nfine but I think it sounds like someone's blaming you for being late and\nyou're stating an excuse. 3 sounds fine too. 4 sounds a bit awkward to me... I\nthink you'd say 子どもなものですから/子どもなもんだから when you apologize to someone for\nsomething your kid has done. e.g. 「申し訳ありません、子どもなものですから」「ごめんね、子どもなもんだから」. \n \nSo... I think the first set (~ものだから/もんだから) are more used to just express a\nreason, while the second set (~だもの/だもん) might have a nuance of complaint or\ndissatisfaction, a grumbling tone or maybe a criticizing tone... so the second\nset might sound like 'I didn't go to the party, and it wasn't my fault,\nbecause I wasn't invited/nobody told me about it.'/'It can't be helped, and\nyou shouldn't complain, because he's just a kid.'", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-29T08:27:19.667", "id": "5673", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-29T11:09:44.737", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-29T11:09:44.737", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "5648", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "The よく here is neither the one meaning \"often\" nor is it abbreviated from よくも.", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-28T06:27:05.713", "id": "5653", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-28T06:27:05.713", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "5651", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 }, { "body": "[`よく`](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8&p=%E3%82%88%E3%81%8F&dtype=0&dname=0ss&stype=1&index=120099400000&pagenum=1)\ncan be used as praise in regards to something which entails\ndifficulties/trouble in some contexts (this is separate to the \"often/well\"\nmeaning):\n\n> **よく** まあ来られましたね！ \n> _How wonderful_ it is that you were able to come!\n\nBut it can also be used ironically in that sense, which I think is how it's\nused in those lyrics:\n\n> **よく(も)** まあそんなことが言えますね \n> _How dare_ you say such a thing? \n> (Literally something like \" _How wonderful_ that you can say such a\n> thing.\")\n\n[`よくも`](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8&p=%E3%82%88%E3%81%8F%E3%82%82&dtype=0&dname=0ss&stype=0&index=120109300000&pagenum=1)\nis a strengthened version of\n[`よく`](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8&p=%E3%82%88%E3%81%8F&dtype=0&dname=0ss&stype=1&index=120099400000&pagenum=1)\n(according to\n[Daijisen](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8&p=%E3%82%88%E3%81%8F%E3%82%82&dtype=0&dname=0na&stype=0&index=18941800&pagenum=1))\nused to express surprise/blame at awful behavior. The `も` can be omitted and\nhave the same \"how dare...\" meaning in many contexts.\n\nIf you look at the [Progressive JE dictionary entry for\n`よく`](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?p=%E3%82%88%E3%81%8F&enc=UTF-8&stype=0&dtype=3),\nyou'll see some more examples in the 5th and 6th definitions.", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-28T08:04:21.263", "id": "5655", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-28T22:39:56.727", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-28T22:39:56.727", "last_editor_user_id": "706", "owner_user_id": "796", "parent_id": "5651", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 }, { "body": "\"よく言う\" has more than three meanings. Here are three:\n\n 1. 母は、外国に行ってみたいと、よく言っていた。＝My mom often told me that she wanted to go abroad.\n\n 2. 社長に、私のことを、よく言ってくれてありがとう＝Thank you for speaking well of me to the president.\n\n 3. よく、そんなことが言えるな。(an ironic expression) ＝How can you say such a silly thing? Give me a break.\n\nIn this example it is the third meaning.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-28T18:24:12.983", "id": "5664", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-28T18:41:34.460", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-28T18:41:34.460", "last_editor_user_id": "706", "owner_user_id": "706", "parent_id": "5651", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "I see two possible meanings for this character combination:\n\nIt's gonna sound a little gross, but the two ideographs tell me exactly what a\ncoward is doing. When scared, most people have the [fight or flight\nresponse](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fight-or-flight_response). The body's\nnatural reaction, to make flight (read: running away) easier is to make itself\nlighter. This is done by emptying itself. that's as detailed as I'll get, you\ncan read more on what this means on the wiki article I linked.\n\nMost people who are seen as cowards will run away from their problems, or from\nscary things. This might be a reason why these two characters might go\ntogether to give the compound idea of a coward. As in \"A coward is someone\nwhose waist extracts (the contents of itself) when trouble is around\" <\\- I\nmade that up, it's not a quote from anything (that I know of).\n\nThe other possible reason for these two characters being used together might\nbe less likely, but it's still possible.\n\nWhat used to happen to cowards and people who betrayed their\nmasters/superiors/lords? They would be forced to commit Seppuku. Seppuku\nrequires that the belly (just above the waist) of the coward/betrayer be\nopened (or emptied) and their head removed, then the head is severed. Maybe\nthe first act of Seppuku is referenced in this character combination.\n\nI seem to remember reading somewhere that the removal of the head during the\nact of committing Seppuku is to save the person from too much pain, and bring\na swift death. I can't remember where I read it, though. I'm sure it was\neither in one of my Japanese history texts or in Book of Five Rings/Bushido,\nbut I could be wrong. anyway, that's a side note.\n\nAgain, this is just conjecture and guess work on my part. Mainly, these\nguesses are based on what I think the though process behind the creation/first\nuse of the phrase may have been.\n\nI'm sorry that I can't link to any definitive proof. I just thought that I\nwould share my two cents on the OP.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-28T08:42:11.623", "id": "5656", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-28T08:42:11.623", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1206", "parent_id": "5652", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "Looking at the [Daijisen\ndefinition](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8&p=%E8%85%B0%E6%8A%9C%E3%81%91&dtype=0&dname=0na&stype=0&pagenum=1&index=06536900),\nit seems to mean in the first definition \"losing the strength of the\nback/waist and becoming unable to stand\", and probably from that in the second\ndefinition \"lacking guts\"/\"coward\".\n\nI would say from this that `腰抜け` might be very close to the English\nexpressions [\"spineless\"](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/spineless),\n[\"no spine\"](http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/no+spine.html),\n\"lacking spine\" etc for a similar reason.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-28T09:23:27.480", "id": "5657", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-28T09:57:48.843", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-28T09:57:48.843", "last_editor_user_id": "796", "owner_user_id": "796", "parent_id": "5652", "post_type": "answer", "score": 9 }, { "body": "An upright posture is symbolic of strength and bravery. Being able to resist\nbeing forced into other postures such as being forced to bow or kneel to\nanother requires 腰.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-28T09:57:00.990", "id": "5659", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-28T09:57:00.990", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "542", "parent_id": "5652", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "If the sentence ends in a verb or -い adjective, **do not** use -だそう. Here's an\nexample:\n\n> Nagano has delicious soba: 長野はそばがおいしいです。 \n> I hear Nagano has delicious soba: 長野はそばがおいしいそうです。 \n> According to the travel agency, Nagano has delicious soba：\n> 旅行会社によると、長野はそばがおいしいそうです。\n\nIf the sentence ends in a -な adjective or a noun, use -だそう:\n\n> Mount Fuji is beautiful: 富士山はきれいです。 \n> I hear Mount Fuji is beautiful: 富士山はきれいだそうです。 \n> According to my sensei, Mount Fuji is beatiful: 先生によると、富士山はきれいだそうです。\n\nThe rule is this: take the plain form of the sentence (as if you're speaking\ninformally), and add そうです.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-08-02T17:23:17.700", "id": "6374", "last_activity_date": "2013-07-21T19:52:14.490", "last_edit_date": "2013-07-21T19:52:14.490", "last_editor_user_id": "1575", "owner_user_id": "1575", "parent_id": "5658", "post_type": "answer", "score": 9 } ]

[ { "body": "The [ただいま]{LHHH} that you say when you arrive home is a contraction of\nただ今帰りました. \n(ただ = たった/just, 今 = now, 帰りました = (I) came back / came home / returned) \n\nI think one other situation you're talking about might be where you say\n「ただいま」, 'Certainly, sir' / 'Yes sir, I'll do that right away' / 'Yes, I'll be\nright with you', etc., when someone tells you to do something or calls you,\nand probably rushes you. I think this [ただいま]{LHLL} (with a stress on だ and a\nfalling tone on いま) literally means 'right now' 'right away', like\n「（はい、）たった今（行きます/参ります。」 or 「（はい、）今すぐに（します/やります）。」", "comment_count": 6, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-28T18:31:41.220", "id": "5665", "last_activity_date": "2018-01-27T07:54:57.473", "last_edit_date": "2018-01-27T07:54:57.473", "last_editor_user_id": "9831", "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "5660", "post_type": "answer", "score": 12 } ]

[ { "body": "めん(免) in ごめん(御免) means 'forgiveness/to forgive', like in the verb '免ずる/免じる'\n(which I think is the literary or archaic form of '許す'). なさい makes it\nimperative, so ご免なさい literally means 'Please forgive (me)', like\n免じてください/許してください.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-28T17:45:04.547", "id": "5663", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-28T17:55:08.460", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-28T17:55:08.460", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "5661", "post_type": "answer", "score": 19 } ]

[ { "body": "It can be loosely translated to \"even\".\n\nで is \"with\", and も is \"also\", so you put them together and makes \"also with\",\nor \"even with\"...but we generally wouldn't say that in English, so it becomes\n\"even\": \"You can even pay by card\".", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-28T20:20:53.113", "id": "5667", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-28T20:20:53.113", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "921", "parent_id": "5666", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 }, { "body": "Here でも means \"even\" or \"also\".\n\n> Even a card is OK?\n>\n> Even in Nagoya (they) sell (them)?/ It's sold even in Nagoya?\n\nDepending on context it can also mean:\n\n> It's also sold in Nagoya?\n\nsee this example for reference:\n\n> 群馬のある民宿でも売っています。 There is a lodge in Gunma that also sells them.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-28T20:51:00.023", "id": "5668", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-28T20:57:13.807", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T08:18:27.500", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "706", "parent_id": "5666", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "**もいいですか is a common expression in Japanese asking for permission**. For\nexample, \"can I do\". While the particle で has multiple meanings depending on\nthe context, here it means \"by means of\" or \"with.\n\nTogether the first sentence means \"Is a card okay?\". **Since Japanese leaves\nout a lot of words, the full sentence would probably be \"Is it okay [to pay /\nuse] a card\"**", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2022-12-11T01:22:31.730", "id": "97588", "last_activity_date": "2022-12-11T01:22:31.730", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "10796", "parent_id": "5666", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "Yes, you are right. There is an old rule in the industry to substitute\n[半角]{はんかく}スペース for [読点]{とうてん} and [全角]{ぜんかく}スペース for [句点]{くてん}. 半角スペース are\ncounted as 0.5 spaces and 全角スペース are counted as 1 space respectively. However,\ntelevision shows are less strict than movies and generally only omit 読点 only,\nwhereas movies omit both.\n\n> So, why is there this rule?\n\nI think there are several reasons why. First, I think it should be noted that\n[句読点]{くとうてん} were not originally part of the Japanese language to begin with.\nThere use originally started when text was being translated from other\nlanguages, such as English to Japanese in the Meiji Era. If you look at any\nold Japanese text before this you will probably not see there use. Some sites\nI have read point out this fact and claim that this \"leftover tradition\" is\nthe reason why 句読点 are not used. However, there also is a strong notion that\nsubtitles are [邪魔]{じゃま} and should only be used sparingly. Most companies have\na rule that only allows up to 12 to 16 characters per line and a maximum of\nonly 4 characters per second. Because of these restrictions, any extraneous\nstuff is left out. Also, some people claim that omitting 句読点 makes it easier\nto read without them and a lot of Japanese people don't use them to begin\nwith.\n\nBy the way, +1 from me for a very nice observation :).", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-29T21:23:38.663", "id": "5679", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-29T21:23:38.663", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1217", "parent_id": "5669", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 } ]

[ { "body": "According to WWWJDIC via Rikaichan:\n\n> 俺 おれ、 だいこう、 ないこう (pn,adj-no,male) I; me (rough or arrogant-sounding first-\n> person pronoun, formerly also used by women); (P)\n\nSo it seems that it used to be a gender-neutral noun.", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-29T03:56:00.350", "id": "5671", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-29T04:34:16.403", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-29T04:34:16.403", "last_editor_user_id": "769", "owner_user_id": "769", "parent_id": "5670", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 }, { "body": "Quoting\n[Wikipedia](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E8%AA%9E%E3%81%AE%E4%B8%80%E4%BA%BA%E7%A7%B0%E4%BB%A3%E5%90%8D%E8%A9%9E#.E4.BF.BA.EF.BC.88.E3.81.8A.E3.82.8C.EF.BC.89):\n\n>\n> 「おれ」は「おのれ」の転訛で、鎌倉時代以前は二人称として使われたが次第に一人称に移行し、江戸時代には貴賎男女を問わず幅広く使われた。明治以降になると共通語では女性の使用者はほぼいなくなったが、東北地方を中心に方言では根強く残っている。愛知県西三河地方でも農業地区では女性の一人称として平成の今日に至っても使用されている事例がある。\n>\n>\n> また、アクセントは平板型（「れ」の方が高く、それとほぼ同じ音高で後の語が開始する）が一般的であるが、一部地域[どこ?]では「お」にアクセントを付けて使用することもある。\n>\n> 西日本では年をとると「わし」に移行することが多い。特に広島などでは「俺」は気取った一人称とされ、通常の場ではあまり使われない。\n\nTranslation:\n\nおれ, which originally came from おのれ, used to be used as a second-person pronoun\n(like “you”) before the Kamakura period (1185–1333). However, it gradually\nbecame used to refer to oneself and was used by men and women of various\nbackgrounds widely in the Edo period. In the Meiji period, most women stopped\nusing it in the standard dialect, but its usage remained strong in local\ndialects mainly in the Tohoku region. Also, in the west Mikawa region of Aichi\nprefecture, it is still used today by some women to refer to oneself in local\nfarming areas.\n\nGenerally the\n[[平板型]{へいばんがた}](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%B9%B3%E6%9D%BF%E5%9E%8B)\naccent is most commonly used. However, in certain regions, an accent is put on\nthe お.\n\nIn western Japan, many people refer to themselves as わし when they get older.\nIn Hiroshima especially, the use of おれ is considered to be arrogant and is not\nused often.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-29T21:27:59.203", "id": "5680", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-31T00:50:41.343", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-31T00:50:41.343", "last_editor_user_id": "15", "owner_user_id": "1217", "parent_id": "5670", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 } ]

[ { "body": "[goo,\nよく【善く／良く／▽好く／▽能く／▽克く】](http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/jn2/227079/m0u/%E3%82%88%E3%81%8F/)\n\n> ４ 困難なことをしたり、考えられないような喜ばしい結果を得たりして感じ入るさま。本当にまあ。よくぞ。「―来てくれました」「月給だけで―やっていけるね」 \n>\n\n4 Being impressed by someone doing something difficult or achieving a\nmiraculous result. (alternates). (examples)\n\n> ５ 相手の非常識な言動などを非難するさま。4を反語的にいう語。よくもまあ。「―のこのこと来られたものだ」 \n>\n\n5 Reproaching a person's absurd words/deeds (and the like). Language\nexpressing 4 ironically. (alternate). (example)\n\nThose are your kanji, at the top; 5 is your meaning; and 4 is what it derives\nfrom (according to goo). (I don't know that 5 is \"figurative\" per se; I think\nit's just sarcastic.)", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-29T20:31:30.677", "id": "5678", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-29T20:31:30.677", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1365", "parent_id": "5672", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "I remember this as the kind of thing a bar hostess would laughingly say to a\npatron who just made a joke. With the right intonation and context these \"I'm\nimpressed/appalled\" phrases can be jovial and light-hearted (and obviously\ndangerous for us to use).", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-30T21:44:49.217", "id": "5694", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-30T21:44:49.217", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1345", "parent_id": "5672", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "I could find one other verb listed as `v5n` (class of \"Godan verb nu\") that\ndidn't end with `死ぬ` in\n[Edict](http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/edict.html):\n[`往{い}ぬ`](http://www.jisho.org/words?jap=%E5%BE%80%E3%81%AC+&eng=&dict=edict)/[`去{い}ぬ`](http://www.jisho.org/words?jap=%E5%8E%BB%E3%81%AC%20&eng=&dict=edict).", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-29T14:32:54.373", "id": "5675", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-29T14:32:54.373", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "796", "parent_id": "5674", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "* 意志薄弱: \"not strongly determined, easily give up the original goal, easily get bored\"\n * 薄志弱行: I have never seen this word. Probably very rare/non-standard word.\n * 優柔不断: \"cannot decide, take long time deciding\"", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-29T18:45:46.727", "id": "5677", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-29T18:45:46.727", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "5676", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "や is not used for verbs, and ～て implies that you do one thing after another.\n～たり～たりする lists verbs which are done in no particular order, possibly among\nother things.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-30T08:00:55.297", "id": "5682", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-30T08:00:55.297", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1173", "parent_id": "5681", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "In the example you cite, the meaning is obviously \"or\", and I think that is\nthe meaning `たり` generally has. The the following example implies \"and\":\n\n> 飲んだり食べたりした \n> Denotes: 'drank or ate' \n> Implies: 'drank and ate'\n\nrather than \"or\", and that is probably because of pragmatic reason: It is\nabout something that already happened, and if the person did only one of\ndrinking or eating, then there is no reason to mention both, so the very fact\nthat both are mentioned in the sentence implies that both were done.\n\nIn your example sentence, it is a definition, which is talking about the\npossibility of one or another event being done, either case of which satisfies\nthe definition; that is why it remains to mean \"or\".", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-30T08:25:07.383", "id": "5683", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-30T08:30:56.953", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-30T08:30:56.953", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "5681", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "If you have a specific person in mind (e.g. you know at least their name),\nthen using an honorific is acceptable, you're just eliding the name. Otherwise\n(\"some programmer\"), the occupation doesn't take one.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-30T12:46:23.173", "id": "5685", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-30T12:46:23.173", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "22", "parent_id": "5684", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 }, { "body": "For occupation, you normally don't put polite affix as Ignacio mentions, but\nin colloquial speech, you can do it to make the speech sound accessible. So in\nformal occasions, don't do it; in colloquial occasions, you may do it.\n\nIn broadcasting/show business, you can go one step further, and attach `さん` to\nthe job. I think it is normal to say `照明さん` \"the lighting engineer\", `音声さん`\n\"the sound engineer\", etc.\n\nHowever, the problem in your case is that `さん` seems to mean singular person,\nso `札幌に行って、プログラマーさんに会います` will not mean \"I am going to Sapporo and meet some\nprogrammers\" but will most naturally mean \"I am going to Sapporo and meet a\n(certain) programmer\". In order to mean plural, you can say\n`札幌に行って、プログラマーさん達に会います`.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-30T13:21:26.153", "id": "5686", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-30T13:26:28.187", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-30T13:26:28.187", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "5684", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "I am not a native, but I would make two guesses as to why it sounds funny:\n\n1) It could be because ちゃん expresses that the speaker finds that person\nendearing. Since お侍 is a position that holds superiority, the use of ちゃん now\nbecomes condescending and rude.\n\n2) The other reason I can think of, is that in japanese the combination of お\nand ちゃん that I have seen are applied to the elderly while still holding the\nendearing quality such as おばあちゃん and おじいちゃん. Substituting 侍 in place could\nshow that their still maintains a characteristic of being amicable between the\nperson and speaker regardless of the 侍 title.", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2012-05-30T16:33:14.467", "id": "5689", "last_activity_date": "2012-05-30T17:27:54.843", "last_edit_date": "2012-05-30T17:27:54.843", "last_editor_user_id": "1328", "owner_user_id": "1328", "parent_id": "5687", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]