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p1atdev

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japanese-stackexchange

like 3

[ { "body": "It's basically a shortening of それで何？, meaning something along the lines of\n'and so...?' or 'then what?' It asks for either a continuation of the thought\n(especially in a story or something else temporally organised) or a conclusion\n(as in 'what you just said is setting something up, what is it?').", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-10-30T17:51:49.417", "id": "13285", "last_activity_date": "2013-10-30T17:51:49.417", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "3639", "parent_id": "13284", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 }, { "body": "An abbreviation of 'それで何？'('Then what?' or 'So what?'). This phrase can be\nused to express both indifference or interest, in a conversation typically\nbetween close friends.\n\nI think it does not translate to 'Is that so?'.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-10-30T20:00:51.273", "id": "13286", "last_activity_date": "2013-10-31T20:32:37.997", "last_edit_date": "2013-10-31T20:32:37.997", "last_editor_user_id": "4098", "owner_user_id": "4098", "parent_id": "13284", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "As the others says, it can be a short version of それで何. To know what else it\ncan mean, though, remember that で, as a particle, is also used to give a\nreason for something, as in 何で. In response to something someone said, it's\nlikely meant to be used the same way 'So' is to ask why they should give a\nflying flip about what they said.\n\nExample:\n\n`タバコは健康{けんこう}に悪い。`\n\n(Tobacco is bad for you)\n\n_take a puff and blows it into the open air_\n\nで\n\n(So?)", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-10-31T23:10:47.403", "id": "13296", "last_activity_date": "2013-10-31T23:10:47.403", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "3172", "parent_id": "13284", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "It is unambiguous that the wife is the one who would be doing the warning, and\nthis sentence is being spoken to her, by the boss, who is directly asking her\nto caution her husband.\n\nThe function of から is really very similar to \"from\" in English, as in going\nfrom point A to point B, last from time A to time B, being made from\nsomething, and others, but especially in this case, hearing something _from_\nsomeone. Therefore the usage of から in this case basically mirrors the English\nmeaning: the boss wants the husband to hear it from the wife. It might be\nslightly confusing because we don't use \"from\" as a command like that in\nEnglish. Like you can't say \"Please caution your husband _from_ yourself.\"\n\nThe grammar of から in this case might be debatable, though. The following is my\noriginal interpretation, with amendments later:\n\nI admit I am kind of speculating here, but my assumption is that から is _not_\nplaying the exact role of が. When you make commands there is an implied\nsubject, so even though you don't include the subject marker in （～が）～してください,\nit is understood. The 奥様から in this case is emphasizing that he wants the wife\nto caution the husband _herself_ , but since there's no が and he's explicitly\nsaying 奥さまから, it kind of sounds like から is replacing が.\n\nAnother way to say it might be （奥さまが）自分から注意してください。 I don't know about you, but\nto me it feels a little more obvious that way, and the separation of the\nsubject version of 奥さま and the origin-of-action version of 奥さま is shown.\n\nEDIT:\n\nThe discussion in the comments has led to the suggestion that から may in fact\nbe able to mark the subject. If this is true then 奥さまが自分から注意してください is\ntechnically different. If we permit から to be a subject marker then the\nsentence can be interpreted as is: 奥さま（から・が）注意してください。", "comment_count": 5, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-10-31T16:23:23.803", "id": "13290", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-01T04:14:57.687", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-01T04:14:57.687", "last_editor_user_id": "1797", "owner_user_id": "1797", "parent_id": "13288", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 }, { "body": "I don't think that 注意する can mean \"to be warned\" because \"to be warned\" is a\npassive construction that would correspond to the 注意される inflection. 注意 means\nboth caution and warning, so 注意する can mean heeding a warning and giving a\nwarning.\n\nJim Breen's [WWWJDIC](http://www.edrdg.org/cgi-bin/wwwjdic) provides not only\na dictionary entry for 注意, but 371 example sentences containing 注意.\n\n```\n\n またこれをしたら罰せられることを私は君に注意しなければならない。\n I must warn you that if you do this again you will be punished. \n \n 君たちは彼の話に注意を払うべきだ。\n You should pay attention to his story. \n \n```", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-01T15:59:06.983", "id": "13303", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-01T15:59:06.983", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1266", "parent_id": "13288", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "A 格助詞【かくじょし】 or \"case-marking particle\" is a particle that attaches to a noun\nform to mark how the word relates to the rest of the sentence or clause. There\nare several, including ～は, ～が, ～を, etc.\n\n～の is a confusing one because there are _several **different** particles_ all\npronounced 「の」, but in this case, I believe it marks the genitive case,\ngenerally used for possession.\n\nIn this particular case, the given analysis of 《代名詞「こ」＋格助詞「の」から》 is only\napplicable to Old Japanese, as 此【こ】 -- originally a pronoun (代名詞【だいめいし】) -- is\nno longer used by itself.\n\nNow, この, その, あの, and どの are simply fully-fledged pronouns. (Incidentally, this\nis all basically true of the other suffixes originally attached to these\npronoun bases, including これ, ここ, どっち, etc.)", "comment_count": 10, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-10-31T17:06:23.993", "id": "13292", "last_activity_date": "2013-10-31T17:06:23.993", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "384", "parent_id": "13291", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 }, { "body": "Here's the skinny. あ, こ, and そ are each technically pronouns on their own.\nUsually we see them in conjunction with a particle. In this case, it's\nconnected to the case marking particle\n([格助詞](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8A%A9%E8%A9%9E#.E6.A0.BC.E5.8A.A9.E8.A9.9E))\n\"の\". A case-marking particle is a particle that indicates the [grammatical\ncase](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_case), or basically the\nfunction of the thing it's modifying. So for example の can mark the genitive\ncase (私の本 = _my_ book). に can mark the locative case (日本に住んでいる = I live _in_\nJapan). を can mark the accusative case (ボールを投げた, where ball is the _direct\nobject_ ). The wikipedia page talks about all the cases pretty clearly, and if\nyou want to venture to the Japanese page on 格助詞 you can. At the very least you\ncan see a list of the case marking particles.\n\nSo in あの・この・その we have our pronouns plus our case marker の. This forms what is\ncalled a\n[連体詞](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%80%A3%E4%BD%93%E8%A9%9E){れんたいし}, or a\nprenominal adjective. As you may be able to guess, it's an adjective that\ncomes before a noun. This ~の form of 連体詞 is basically its own class that is\nthe form of noun + 格助詞「の」. As per wikipedia: \"本来は「名詞」+格助詞「の」だったものが多い。\"\n\nThat might be a little more technical than what you want to hear. A shorter\nversion is that yes, it is the \"の that means 'of',\" but you may want to stop\ntrying to think of it in terms of its rough English translation, because it's\nexactly that: rough. It does not have the exact meaning of \"of.\" You can think\nof it in terms of having that genitive kind of possessive-ish meaning, but try\nto separate it from English if you can. その人 isn't \"person of that,\" but it's\nthe pronoun そ _which is modifying_ 人 in the genitive case. So which person?\nThat person, the one I'm connecting to そ. In English we usually refer to の as\na 'noun modification' particle, at least in educational materials I've seen,\nso try thinking of it like that. Sorry if it's hard to make the connection,\nbut I hope you get it!\n\nUltimately, this grammatical distinction isn't _that_ important. You won't see\nそ or あ or こ on its own as a pronoun anywhere, and I would assume nobody aside\nfrom linguists would actually think of them in terms of their constituent\nparts. For all intents and purposes, they are their own words that just happen\nto have a more grammatical history.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-10-31T17:16:08.833", "id": "13293", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-01T00:48:15.637", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-01T00:48:15.637", "last_editor_user_id": "1797", "owner_user_id": "1797", "parent_id": "13291", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "You can't not tell them Hiragana or Katakana. \nBecause they are desided arbitrarily by companies.\n\nI think using Hiragana as a company's name impress a bit childish and soft. \nBecause in old times, Hiragana was used for private documents especially by\nwomen. \nAnd formal documents were written in Kanji.\n\nMaybe by that historical reason, I feel a company's name in Kanji has a\nclassical and steady atmosphere. \n\nNaming a company in Katakana is relatively new culture. \nWords which named in Katakana mostly have been imported with new things and\nknowredge from foreign counties. \nThat's why Katakana has images of something new and western and cool.\n\nWe still worship western culture unconsciously.", "comment_count": 6, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-02T08:30:42.823", "id": "13314", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-02T09:38:24.510", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-02T09:38:24.510", "last_editor_user_id": "4120", "owner_user_id": "4120", "parent_id": "13294", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "It's either ダダー or ダタッ. Given that if it were a ー on the end then it would\nprobably be horizontally aligned with the other characters, I'm going to\nassume it's a ツ, and because ダタツ doesn't seem to make much sense as\nonomatopoeia, it should be a ッ (small-tsu). Given that it looks like a kind of\nshorter 'impact' sound and not something extended or ringing, I think we can\nrule out ダダー on both counts.\n\nSo my vote is for ダタッ!", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-01T06:18:16.257", "id": "13299", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-01T06:18:16.257", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1797", "parent_id": "13297", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "First of all, it's worth mentioning that [Google counts may not be as reliable\nas you imagine](https://japanese.meta.stackexchange.com/q/522/384).\n\nBut to answer your question, it's a little bit complicated. Generally\nspeaking, when talking about salary, you will want to use 高い・安い to describe\nit. After conducting a brief survey, I found 低い給料 to be considered\n_acceptable_ , but slightly unnatural. その会社は **給料が安い** is also strongly\npreferred over ～が低い.\n\nThere are also words such as 安月給【やすげっきゅう】, which _cannot_ use 低 instead.\n\nHowever, despite all of that, the opposite of the word 高所得者【こうしょとくしゃ】 (person\nwith a high salary) is 低所得者【ていしょとくしゃ】.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-01T11:38:26.327", "id": "13301", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-01T11:58:16.707", "last_edit_date": "2017-03-16T15:48:25.793", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "384", "parent_id": "13300", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "Pacerier,\n\n**Is it proper to use 低い to mean \"low salary\"?**\n\nYes it is. I hear it and see it in print all the time. I don't agree that 低い\nsounds unnatural. My wife is Japanese and she agrees. You're specific example,\nhowever, (低いお給料)sounds a little unusual to me, I can't put my finger on it,\nbut I think it's because the honorific. I've never heard that specific\npairing.\n\nIf you check ALC you will find twice as many examples with 低い as with 安い。It's\njust a different way of saying it. As mentioned, for high salary you need to\nuse 高い. Note that 高い means both 'high' and 'expensive' so you really have no\nchoice there.\n\n安い means cheap, and 低い means low. It mirrors English in that it doesn't matter\nwhether I say \"low-wages\" or \"cheap wages\".\n\nNOTE: you can also say お給料が少ない。 But if you find this confusing you don't need\nto use it, just understand if you hear it.\n\n**Or is it simply an example of usage corruption?**\n\nAs above. It is not a corruption in any way. It is common. Here are samples\nfrom ALC's dictionary.\n\n```\n\n 給料が低い\n be ungenerously compensated\n 給料の低い\n 【形】\n low-paid（仕事などが）\n low-paying（仕事などが）\n poorly-paid（仕事などが）\n poorly-paying（仕事などが）\n 給料の低いパートの仕事\n low-paying ［low-paid, poorly-paid, poorly-paying］ part-time job ［work］\n 給料の低い仕事\n low-paying ［low-paid, poorly-paid, poorly-paying］ job ［work］\n low-paying ［low-paid, poorly-paid］ occupation\n low-paying ［low-paid, poorly-paid］ vocation〔log-paying occupationの方が使用頻度が高い。〕\n 給料の低い職業\n low-paying ［low-paid, poorly-paid］ occupation\n low-paying ［low-paid, poorly-paid］ vocation〔log-paying occupationの方が使用頻度が高い。〕\n 給料が非常に低い\n be paid very little（主語の）\n 給料が～より低い\n be paid less than（主語の）\n それらの仕事は給料の面では低い。\n Those jobs are in the lower echelon in terms of wages.\n 給料が～よりもずっと低い\n get paid much less than（主語の）\n 支払われている給料が～よりもずっと低い\n be paid much less than（主語に）\n 低い給料\n low pay\n low wage〔通例、複数形のwagesが用いられる。〕\n 低い給料で働く\n work for a low wage\n 低い給料をもらう\n draw low wages\n さらに低い給料でより多くの責任を引き受ける\n accept more responsibilities for less money\n 比較的低い給料\n relatively-small salary\n 比較的低い給料を得る\n earn a relatively-small salary\n これまでにないほど低い額の給料をもらう\n take one's lowest salary ever\n \n```", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-01T15:48:08.600", "id": "13302", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-01T16:07:53.890", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-01T16:07:53.890", "last_editor_user_id": "4075", "owner_user_id": "4075", "parent_id": "13300", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "I agree that both 低い給料 and 安い給料 are acceptable, but the latter is far more\ncommon. On the other hand 低い収入 is common and 安い収入 is borderline acceptable. I\nmake sense of this as follows.\n\n給料 talks about money directly (containing the kanji 料, cf. 有料), and the way to\ntalk about money is to use 安い・高い. Think of 給料 as _salary_. 給料 can be 安い,\nbecause it is a fixed amount of money for a fixed of time. 給料 appears on a\nsingle pay-check.\n\n収入 on the other hand is a more abstract way to talk about someone's _income_\nand in that sense is only indirectly about money. A 収入 is 低い, because it is an\naverage amount of money for a standard amount of time (usually a year). 収入 has\nto be calculated over several pay-checks, possibly from different sources.\n\nIn English, of course we say \"low salary\" and \"low income\", but from the\ndifference of \"salary\" and \"income\" I don't think it's too far a stretch of\none's imagination that \"salary\" (a one-off payment for a one-off job) could\ndescribed to be \"cheap\" in Japanese.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-01T19:51:41.953", "id": "13305", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-01T19:51:41.953", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1628", "parent_id": "13300", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 }, { "body": "As rintaun wrote, Google counts are not that reliable. To advocate the use of\na corpus, here are some numbers from the [Balanced Corpus of Contemporary\nWritten Japanese\n(BCCWJ)](https://japanese.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/522/google-counts-\nmay-not-be-as-reliable-as-you-imagine/1086#1086):\n\n * 低いお給料 vs 安いお給料: 0 vs 0\n * 低い給料 vs 安い給料: 0 vs 16\n * 給料が低 vs 給料が安: 4 vs 22 \n(I checked all the results, and I think that all of the results matches the\ngrammatical structure we were expecting here, not something like **給料が安**\n定している.)\n\nI think that it is fair to conclude from this that at least in written text,\n安い is more common than 低い when describing 給料, although both are used.\n\nOn the other hand, in the case of 収入 and 所得, 低い is much more common:\n\n * 低い収入 vs 安い収入: 0 vs 0\n * 収入が低 vs 収入が安: 10 vs 0 \n(収入が低 gave 15 results, but 5 out of the 15 were different words from 低い; 収入が安\ngave 8 results, but all of them were 収入が安定.)\n\n * 低い所得 vs 安い所得: 4 vs 0\n * 所得が低 vs 所得が安: 17 vs 0 \n(所得が低 gave 21 results, but 4 out of the 21 were different words from 低い; 所得が安\ndid not give any results.)", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-01T23:32:25.250", "id": "13309", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-01T23:32:25.250", "last_edit_date": "2017-03-16T15:48:25.793", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "15", "parent_id": "13300", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "Remember that 断つ means \"to cut [off]\", which carries the connotation of \"put\nan end to\", i.e. discussions or other progressing concepts.\n\nA related word is 断言 which means, more or less, \"the final word\", or \"an\nauthoritative answer\". Often used in a negative context when searching for a\ntactful dodge: 「断言できないね」.\n\nSo 断定 is then \"to set with finality\", while 結論 can be \"to tie together\ntheory/discussion\".\n\nIn general it's a good rule of thumb at least with 漢語 to ask first what the\ncharacters are saying, and then try to connect that to the meaning.", "comment_count": 5, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-02T00:25:56.953", "id": "13310", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-02T00:25:56.953", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "3131", "parent_id": "13306", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "Your understanding as to the meaning of さて is correct. The young man is\nwondering which number will show up as his destiny.\n\nThe narration is indeed in 3rd person. However, two lines are understood as\nthe young man's thought (or monologues).\n\n```\n\n どうせ行くあてもなく、帰る途もなく、三界に置き所もないこの身の上だ、ままよ\n \n```\n\nand\n\n```\n\n さて、この目は一体いずれと出ることだろう。\n \n```\n\nThe author is omitting square brackets.", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-02T10:38:16.683", "id": "13315", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-02T10:38:16.683", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4098", "parent_id": "13307", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "These revisions sound -very- strange to my ears. I would never use ある with\nverbs in this way, even if the verb form in question is technically conjugated\nas an adjective, but even if you rewrite them with する, they sound odd. I think\nthis comes down to the base form you're riffing off of. 食べもしない is a quite\nnormal way of saying 'I won't even eat it' or 'I won't eat it either', but it\nis in no way possible to rephrase it as 食べなくもする. 食べなくもする, to my ears, sounds\npossible but unusual -- if I were to hear it on its own, I would think it\nmeant '(Besides doing other things,) I am also not eating', but it would be\nmuch more natural-sounding to say (何々をするけど、) 食べはしない. 食べなくもある simply doesn't\nmake any sense -- it's as if there's some state of not eating that's existing\nindependent of any participants.\n\nSince it's not possible to use forms like 食べなくもある, it's not possible to extend\nthem into constructions like you've created.\n\nYour analysis of adjectives is largely correct, but I think things end up\nsomewhat different with adjective-like verb forms like ない -- while you can do\nthings like しなくなる, you can't really use ある beyond forms that are historically\nderived from it (e.g. なかった). I think this is a semantic thing, since the same\nforms sound pretty okay with たい (e.g. 食べたくはある) -- this is probably because たい,\nlike straight-up adjectives, creates a state (of wanting to do something),\nwhile ない is more of an action (well, lack thereof, but still an action for\nsemantics purposes). So you can use ある with stative things, but you have to\nuse する with active things, but even then, 食べなくはする sounds odd.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-02T02:41:12.873", "id": "13311", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-02T02:41:12.873", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "3639", "parent_id": "13308", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "This structure is correct it is just very casual Japanese sorry if my\nexplanation is too simple I don't have a very large English vocabulary but\nhere is an example from a song lyric.\n\n許せなくもあり そうされたくもあり\n\nhere is the link to the official lyrics\n\n<http://j-lyric.net/artist/a000680/l00ab4a.html>", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-21T04:43:14.010", "id": "13466", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-21T04:43:14.010", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4209", "parent_id": "13308", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "```\n\n 和尚にたのまれていた肉体労働も今のうちに片づけてしまう。\n \n```\n\nFrom this expression alone, we cannot assume that his task is not an issue\nnow.\n\nHowever, as you suspect,\n\n```\n\n 和尚にたのまれている肉体労働も今のうちに片づけてしまう。\n \n```\n\nhas the same meaning. However, it cannot be said that 'たのまれている' is more widely\nused than 'たのまれていた'.\n\nNote that sometimes 'たのまれている' cannot be used in a similar context: For\nexample, if the date or the time of the request is specified, you can say\n\n```\n\n 和尚に三日前にたのまれていた肉体労働も今のうちに片づけてしまう。\n \n```\n\nBut you cannot say\n\n```\n\n 和尚に三日前にたのまれている肉体労働も今のうちに片づけてしまう。\n \n```", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-06T17:24:58.757", "id": "13361", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-06T17:24:58.757", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4146", "parent_id": "13312", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 }, { "body": "I'll keep my answer brief and as simple as it can be. 頼まれていた is the verb\nmodifying the noun - 肉体労働 - here. Essentially, just like in English, both\nsentences mean, pretty much, the same thing, but the nuance is different.\n頼まれていた shows that the monk tried on multiple occasions to get us to do what he\nmeant us to do, and 頼まれている means more or less that the monk is nagging us with\ncompleting it, constantly asking us to finish it.", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-06T23:06:16.913", "id": "13362", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-06T23:06:16.913", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "3776", "parent_id": "13312", "post_type": "answer", "score": -2 }, { "body": "> 和尚にたのまれ _ていた_ 肉体労働も今のうちに片づけてしまう。 \n> 和尚にたのまれ _ている_ 肉体労働も今のうちに片づけてしまう。 \n> 和尚にたのまれ _た_ 肉体労働も今のうちに片づけてしまう。\n\n... all sound alright to me and mean pretty much the same thing.\n\n> 和尚にたのまれ _た_ 肉体労働も今のうちに片づけてしまう。 \n>\n\nsounds to me like \"~~~ physical labour that the priest asked me to do.\" You\ncan say\n\n> 和尚に _先週_ たのまれ _た_ 肉体労働も今のうちに片づけてしまう。 \n>\n\n...adding 先週(last week), but not 先週から(since last week).\n\n> 和尚にたのまれ _ている_ 肉体労働も今のうちに片づけてしまう。 \n>\n\nsounds to me like \"~~~ physical labour that the priest has asked me to do.\"\nYou can say \n\n> 和尚に _先週から_ たのまれ _ている_ 肉体労働も今のうちに片づけてしまう。 \n>\n\n...adding 先週から, but not 先週.\n\n> 和尚にたのまれ _ていた_ 肉体労働も今のうちに片づけてしまう。 \n>\n\nsounds to me like (しばらく前に)たのまれていた(けれどまだやっていなかった/そろそろやらないといけない), like \"~~~\nphysical labour that the priest asked me to do (a while ago but I haven't done\nyet/I should be doing now)\".", "comment_count": 8, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-07T04:48:12.330", "id": "13366", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-07T08:16:34.030", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-07T08:16:34.030", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13312", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 } ]

[ { "body": "Check out [this site](http://www.kanjinetworks.com/index.cfm) for some kanji\netymology. I've posted the results there.\n\n**産** : 生 (Type 2 Phonetic) birth; life + an abbreviated form of 彦\n(handsome/well-formed) → (well-formed), locally grown, life-sustaining product\n→ produce; production; local product/material (that sustains life) → one's\nbirthplace → childbirth.\n\n**生** : SIS shows an abbreviated form (Type 8 Phonetic) of 艸 grass/plant + 土\nearth → fresh, slender grass shoots → birth; life → new; fresh; sprout; raw;\nalive; by nature; youth; unripe; pure; bear fruit; spare a life; bring back to\nlife; make use of; make a living; be/remain valid; arrange flowers/plants;\ngrow; undiluted.\n\nFunny enough I just saw these two kanji used in a short story by Kenzaburo Oe\nthis evening while studying. In the story なぜ子供は学校に行かねばならないのか, the narrator\nuses the 産む when referring to his mother's speech, where 生む is used in the\npassive form (生まれる）. Both are talking about giving birth, but its interesting\nto think about how the usage of 産 in this case does refer more explicitly to\nthe production of a child.\n\nAlthough that alone, even combined with the kanji etymology, isn't conclusive,\nbut it seems to me like you're on the right path when viewing 産 as more\nrelated to production whereas 生 is inherently more related to life, as a\ngeneral concept, e.g. 生物、[生]{い}きる、生活", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-06T08:30:28.000", "id": "13357", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-06T15:44:28.957", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-06T15:44:28.957", "last_editor_user_id": "78", "owner_user_id": "4142", "parent_id": "13316", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "うむ and うまれる should be written with 産 only if it refers to the (punctual) act\nof a mother giving birth to a baby or, in the case of non-mammals, a female\nlaying an egg or a young hatching from an egg. 生 can also be used for that,\nbut it covers a much broader range of meanings and is used for all other\nsenses.\n\nThe reason うまれた is often written with 生 is that it is used to refer to the\nbeginning of one’s life in an abstract sense, rather than the concrete\ninstance of emerging from the mother’s body or, to use a passive form, being\ndelivered. 産 may be used to stress the latter sense.\n\n> 元気な男の子が産まれた。\n\ncf.\n\n> 私はアメリカで生まれた。\n\n産みの苦しみ may also be used for a thing, but this should be understood as a\nfigurative usage in reference to the pains a mother goes through when\ndelivering a baby.\n\nHere are a few references.\n\n * [生む（生まれる）・産む（産まれる）の違い](https://business-textbooks.com/umu-difference/)\n * [「生む（生まれる）」と「産む（産まれる）」の違いと使い分け](https://eigobu.jp/magazine/umu)", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2022-02-16T06:18:09.873", "id": "93435", "last_activity_date": "2022-02-16T06:18:09.873", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "43676", "parent_id": "13316", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "It is hard to tell the difference but the word あの世 might help you to\nunderstand the difference.\n\nあの世 means 'the other world' which you go when you die. So, its opposite この世\nmeans \"land of the living\" or \"this life\" or... the world, which is not just\nthe earth. On the other hand, この世界 is almost the same as the earth. Well, you\ncould say that この世界 includes Mars or Mercury or other planets, but for\nexample, 世界一 definitely means 'No.1 on earth'. People say 宇宙一 for 'No.1 in the\nuniverse'\n\nHmmm... it's hard to explain in English..\n\nこの世 has a kind of religious or spiritual connotation. Just remember that I'm\ntalking about この世. There are a lot of words which include the character 世, and\neach word has its own subtle nuances.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-03T18:33:18.353", "id": "13328", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-03T19:56:49.430", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-03T19:56:49.430", "last_editor_user_id": "384", "owner_user_id": "4128", "parent_id": "13318", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[]

[ { "body": "> Is there any way to understand べき in a similar manner?\n\nI am afraid not.\n\nべき is the 連体形 form of inflectable suffix べし in Classical Japanese, and in\nClassical Japanese, 連体形 form was used as an abstract noun by itself in\ngeneral. According to\n[Daijisen](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?dtype=0&dname=0na&index=16563700),\nthe widely accepted origin of べし is adverb\n[うべし](http://kobun.weblio.jp/content/%E3%81%86%E3%81%B9%E3%81%97) in Classical\nJapanese, which meant something similar to “indeed.” I do not know the origin\nof うべし.\n\nBut I doubt that this knowledge (plus the knowledge about the origin of うべし)\nhelps you understand the meaning and usage of べき in the modern Japanese. While\nI respect your experience that etymology helped you understand the meaning and\nusage of _some_ words, I think that you were lucky in those cases.\n\n> how should I understand its [べき’s] nuance?\n\nI do not know. Maybe you can check the examples of べき and べし in a textbook or\na dictionary?\n\nJust in case, do not try to remember the meanings listed in a dictionary. We\nuse words in English (e.g. “should”) without remembering its ten or so\nmeanings listed in a dictionary. You should do the same thing with words in\nJapanese.", "comment_count": 9, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-03T14:34:09.737", "id": "13324", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-03T14:34:09.737", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "15", "parent_id": "13322", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 }, { "body": "The best way to understand べし is to look at how it was used in classical\nJapanese, because some of that usage extends into modern Japanese. Then,\nseparately look at how it is used commonly in modern Japanese.\n\nEtymologically, べし probably came from the adjective うべし as Tsuyoshi Ito said,\njust shortened for use as an auxiliary adjective, and additional\nmeanings/usages were added to it over time.\n\nべし attaches to the 終止形{しゅうしけい} or 連体形{れんたいけい}(ラ変). In modern Japanese, the\ndistinction between 終止形 and 連体形 has deteriorated, but in classical Japanese,\nfor instance, this would mean 食{た}ぶべし rather than 食{た}ぶるべし, すべし instead of\nするべし, あるべし instead of ありべし. - As a given rule there is always an \"u\" sound\nbefore the べし.\n\nThe classical conjugation for べし is like all classical ク形容詞{けいようし},\n(べから・べく、べかり・べし・べき、べかる・べけれ、べかれ）.\n\nHowever in modern Japanese べき basically transformed into a restricted な\nadjective. Or, if you don't want to call it that, a 終止形 form べき(だ)、and 連体形\nform for use with particles べき(なの), that are like the corresponding な\nconjugations were added to the list of possible べき forms in modern Japanese.\nOther strange and restricted な adjectives that used to be 形容詞 include 同{おな}じ\n(mix of original and な-adj-ish form) and 大{おほ}し→大{おお}きな (連体形 only).\n\nThese conjugations mix together in modern Japanese, using the classical for\nphrases like ～べからず, ～べからざる, すべき - and modern for するべき, ～べきだ.\n\nAnyway, the best way to understand is studying on your own. 頑張ってください。\n\nKnowing the etymology is very helpful to understanding sometimes, but you have\nto remember that it isn't always everything.\n\nYou could think of しかし in terms of of しかじ (classical form), which is just a\nconjugation of the verb 如{し}く, which is the basis for a whole slew of other\nthings, and give yourself a headache, or you could just pay attention to how\nand where it is used regularly in sentences.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-28T10:25:25.997", "id": "13546", "last_activity_date": "2014-05-19T16:53:28.973", "last_edit_date": "2014-05-19T16:53:28.973", "last_editor_user_id": "5229", "owner_user_id": "433", "parent_id": "13322", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "Usually, when people say \"passive\" in the context of Japanese, they're\ndescribing verb forms that have the suffix 〜(ら)れる attached. Take a look at the\nfollowing examples, taken from the section on passives in Shibatani's _The\nLanguages of Japan_ , p.318:\n\n> 友達【ともだち】が太郎【たろう】を殴る【なぐる】。 _(non-passive version)_ \n> \"The friend **hits** Taro.\"\n>\n> 太郎は友達に殴 **られ** た。 _(passive version)_ \n> \"Taro **was hit by** a friend.\"\n\nThis form can express a number of things, including _passive_ , _potential_ ,\nand less commonly _honorific_ and _spontaneous_ meanings. For details on this\nform, please see your textbook; in this answer, I'm going to concentrate on\nthe form you asked about.\n\nSince your sentence doesn't contain 〜(ら)れる, I would say it's not actually\npassive. You could argue otherwise, and you could translate it with the\npassive voice in English if you like, but I think it's active in Japanese.\n\nIn your sentence, に is expressing who is capable of reading the book. It\nchanges the statement from a general one to a statement about Americans. (But\nsince there's a も, it means Americans _as well_ [as Japanese], or _even_\nAmericans.)\n\nTake a look at the following examples from [Shibatani's 1999 paper on dative\nconstructions](http://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/9678/SLS1999v29.2-06Shibatani.pdf?sequence=2),\npp.63-64:\n\n> a. 日本語が話せる。 \n> \"Japanese can be spoken.\"\n>\n> b. ハワイで(は)日本語が話せる。 \n> \"In Hawai'i Japanese can be spoken.\"\n>\n> c. ケンに(は)日本語が話せる。 \n> \"Ken can speak Japanese / Ken can be spoken Japanese to; \n> (lit) With respect to Ken, it is true that Japanese can be spoken\"\n\nHere's what Shibatani write about these examples:\n\n> Consider a Japanese potential expression like [a]. It is not true that\n> Japanese can be spoken anywhere or by anyone. This statement thus **needs to\n> be confined to a particular domain**. This can be done either by providing a\n> location in which Japanese can be spoken, as in [b], or **a person who can\n> realize the potential state** , as in [c]. _(emphasis added)_\n\nThe statement you're asking about is similar to [c], except that it's been\nturned into a relative clause. Here's a non-relative version, with the head\nnoun phrase 日本語の本 inserted with a が-role:\n\n> アメリカ人にも（日本語の本が）読める \n> \"A Japanese book is readable by { even Americans / Americans, too }\"\n\nThis noun phrase is pulled out, and it's turned into a relative clause:\n\n> （アメリカ人にも読める）日本語の本 \n> \"A Japanese book that { even Americans can read / Americans can read, too\n> }\"\n\nThis makes a single noun phrase which is placed inside the larger sentence\nこれは〜です, which of course means \"This is 〜 (polite)\":\n\n> これは（（アメリカ人にも読める）日本語の本）です。 \n> \"This is a Japanese book that { even Americans can read / Americans can\n> read, too } (polite)\"\n\nAnd with that, we've put your sentence back together.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-03T14:52:58.753", "id": "13325", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-03T21:42:11.597", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-03T21:42:11.597", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13323", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 }, { "body": "The potential form is the potential form, and has no special meaning or\ninfluence in this pattern. As @snailboat mentioned, there is no passive form\nanywhere in this example. I think the core of your confusion is the presence\nof the `に`. For that, I'll refer you to this other topic: [が and に\ninterchangeability and difference in\nmeaning](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/4440/78).\n\nThis is a case where `に` is replacing `が` and it seems somewhat unnatural.\nHowever, as I explain in my answer in the above topic, this `に` translates to\nsomething like \"unto ～\" or \"by ～\". So the following clauses are essentially\ninterchangeable:\n\n> * アメリカ人 **が** 読める日本語の本 → A Japanese book that Americans are able to read\n> * アメリカ人 **に** 読める日本語の本 → A Japanese book that is readable by/unto\n> Americans\n>\n\nNow, adding the `も` is just adding the emphatic \"even ～\". In this case, the\n`が` version of the clause would replace the `が` with just `も`, but the `に`\nversion would **add** `も` to get `にも`.\n\n> * アメリカ人 **も** 読める日本語の本 → A Japanese book that **even** Americans can read\n> * アメリカ人 **にも** 読める日本語の本 → A Japanese book that is readable **even\n> by/unto** Americans\n>\n\n(Note that with using \"even\" in the `が` version, I believe you _could_\ntechnically change it to be the double-/compound- particle `もが` ― アメリカ人 **もが**\n読める日本語の本 ― but saying it that way seems very literary and/or archaic. Someone\nplease correct me if I'm wrong on that.)\n\nSo I think the root issue here is the `が/に` swap. Hopefully this clears it up\nfor you.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-03T20:23:44.127", "id": "13330", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-03T20:23:44.127", "last_edit_date": "2017-04-13T12:43:48.447", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "78", "parent_id": "13323", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "There are many ways to say \"after ...ing\" in japanese. There is no one to one\ntranslation, since you can use different words as \"after\" depending one the\noverall meaning of the sentence.\n\n# -て から\n\nOne of the most common translations and one of the first one learns would be:\n\n> -て から\n\nThis shouldn't be confused with the reason-giving から which is not used with\nthe て-form of a verb.\n\n_Example:_\n\n> 家に 帰ってから すぐに食べました。(ieni kaettekara sugunitabemashita.) \"After returning\n> home, I ate immediately.\"\n\n_Note._ I believe it is better to say that there is one から. The distinction\nbetween the \"after\"-から and the reason-giving-から is there for learning\npurposes. If one where to give one translation for から that would be \"from\". Eg\n「日本から」(from Japan). So, in the above context of time, the exact translation\nwould be \" **from** (the time I have) returned home, I ate.\", meaning that \"I\nstarted eating _from_ (as origin) my having returned home\". For more info on\nから and to fully get the gist of it, read the excellent\n[IMABI](http://imabi.net)\n\n# -た 後で\n\nAnother usual translation is:\n\n> -た 後で\n\n後 means \"behind\" when you use it in a spatial context (and it is then\npronounced as 「うしろ」) or \"after\" when you are speaking about time (and it is\nthen pronounced as 「あと」. So, in a way, the concept of \"after\" for the Japanese\nis similar to that of \"behind\", while \"before\" is similar to \"in front\". This\nis particularly interesting in 「午前」 and 「午後」（ごぜん and ごご）that mean \"am\" and\n\"pm\" respectively. You could also use that formation in other words, eg 「今後」\nwhich means \"from now on\", literally \"after now\".\n\n_Example:_\n\n> 家に 帰ったあとで、すぐに 食べました。(ieni kaettaatode, suguni tabemashita.) \"After returning\n> home, I ate immediately.\"\n\n_Note that 「、」 was not traditionally used in Japanese and it is written there\nmainly to help foreigners._\n\n# て-form\n\nAnother way to say after is by using just the て-form of the verb.\n\n_Example:_\n\n> 家に 帰って、食べました。(ieni kaette, tabemashita) \"After I returned home, I ate\"\n\n_Note:_ The thing with て-form is there is no exact match for this grammatical\nphenomenon in English. If I were to choose I would say that it is closer to\nthe past participle. But that is just an, at times, convenient translation. If\nI were to literally translate this sentence then, it would be \"At home\nreturned, I ate.\" In any case, one has to just accept things as the are at\nsome point!\n\nAlso, note that the て-form can be used to give reasoning.\n\n# -ます\n\nYou can also use the -ます form of a verb without the ます ending, to denote the\nsuccession of actions.\n\n_Example:_\n\n> 家に 帰り、食べました。\n\n_Note:_ This is more like a listing of the things you did. The ます form of the\nverb without ます is a strange artifact as in many cases it is used as a noun.\nFor instance, 帰り in the example sentence means \"the returning, the coming\nback\". So, again, if you want to translate exactly the example in English, you\nwill have some trouble. If you feel it helps translate it as the present\nparticiple.\n\n# Others:\n\nIn more advanced levels, one learns of many other expressions. Those\nexpressions are used depending on context and, while they might be translated\nas \"after\", the meaning takes a special nuance. For instance：\n\n * -たら： this is one of the few ways to create a hypothesis. But, as in English, hypothesis might have a suspicion of time. Eg 「家に 帰ったら、電話をかけて。」(ieni kaettara, denwawokakete) \"If/When you arrive home, call me.\"\n\n * -とたん： it means \"exactly when\", \"just\". Eg 「寝たとたん、眠りました。」(netatotan,nemurimashita.) \"Just as I lied to sleep, I fall asleep.\", This can be translated as \"exactly after\".\n\n * -次第（しだい）： it also means \"exactly when\", \"just\", but the use cases are different. Literally, it means \"the next in line\", so it is frequently used to request, suggest, ... actions. Eg 「家に 帰り次第、電話をかけてください。」(ieni kaerishidai, denwawokaketekudasai.) \"First thing to do when you return home, please call me.) Again, it might be translated as \"immediately after you arrive home,...\".\n\n * -上で： it is a more polite version of -てから. Here, again, we notice the use of a spatial adjective to express time.\n\n * -上は： it is better translated as \"since\" or \"given that\", eg 「試験を受けることにした上は、勉強するしかない。」(shikenwoukerukotonishitaueha, benkyouusurushikanai.) \"Since I decided to take the exam, there is nothing else to do but study\". Here, \"since\" is more like \"because\" but it also contains the meaning of \"after\".\n\n * 以上： quite similar to 上は, but it rather gives reason that expresses time.\n\nThe list could be going on, but the more one adds, the more they deviate from\nthe meaning of 'after'. All in all, if you are a beginner, stick to what the\nbooks say. \"-tekara means after\", \"taatode means after\" and so on. As you\nbecome more comfortable and acquainted with Japanese, try to sense those\nwords. Listen to how Japanese people use them, their emotion and so on. Not\neverything can be translated 100%. Also, some words are more usually written\nthan said and vice versa. The above is how I understand things.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-27T02:13:35.723", "id": "13526", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-30T00:20:14.403", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-30T00:20:14.403", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4237", "parent_id": "13331", "post_type": "answer", "score": 19 } ]

[ { "body": "I am no longer sure about the reason why 食べなさ sounds strange. In the answer\nbelow, I argued that 食べなさ “the degree of not eating” would be grammatically\nfine but semantically not useful in any context. However, as dainichi\ncommented, this explanation is questionable. For example, different people\nhave different “degrees of not eating vegetables”; some may not eat certain\nraw vegetables while others may refuse to eat any vegetables whatsoever. So\nthis does not seem to explain why we can say 学生はレポート課題の意味のわからなさに頭を抱えた but not\n*田中さんは子供の野菜の食べなさに頭を抱えた.\n\nIn the meanwhile, I will keep the answer I posted in the hope that it may be\nuseful to consider the current question.\n\n* * *\n\nNo, I do not find anything strange with 意味のわからなさ. I do not even think that the\nconstruct -なさ is informal.\n\n_[Edit: In an earlier revision, I stated that I did not think 意味のわからなさ was\ninformal, but I take this word back. I agree with Tokyo Nagoya that 意味のわからなさ\nis an informal expression. I think that it is because expression 意味がわからない\nitself is informal, not because -なさ is informal.]_\n\nAs I understand it, there is no _grammatical_ reason to prevent suffix -さ from\nattaching after suffix -ない. (Aside: Are both 接尾辞 and 助動詞 called “suffix” when\npeople talk about the Japanese grammar in English?)\n\n食べなさ indeed sounds strange to me, but I think that the reason for this is\nsemantic rather than grammatical. Its meaning would be “the degree of not\neating,” but I cannot come up with a context where this notion would make\nsense.\n\nIn contrast, 意味のわからなさ, “the degree of not making sense,” well, makes sense.\nSome thing does not make sense, but it is possible for some other thing to be\neven more nonsense.\n\nHere are some other examples in BCCWJ where a verb is followed by -なさ:\n\n * 割り切れなさ (5 occurrences)\n * 落ち着かなさ (3 occurrences)\n * 至らなさ (13 occurrences) — But: we may argue that 至らない is an adjective which is derived from the negation of verb 至る because, although we say 注意が至らない, we rarely say 注意が至る/至っている.", "comment_count": 8, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-04T00:36:11.437", "id": "13333", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-09T01:50:14.677", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-09T01:50:14.677", "last_editor_user_id": "15", "owner_user_id": "15", "parent_id": "13332", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 } ]

[ { "body": "「くれ」 is the imperative form of 「くれる」 and the 「お」 is the honorific.\n\n> 「Verb in te-form + おくれ」 = \"Do ~~ for me / to me.\"\n\nWithout the 「お」, it would sound much less friendly.\n\n「おくれ」 is used much more often in fiction than in real life -- at least in\nreal, present-day life.\n\n> \"Now, I'll give you this money; (Please) sell me the turtle.\"", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-04T06:22:51.480", "id": "13337", "last_activity_date": "2018-03-27T13:15:54.733", "last_edit_date": "2018-03-27T13:15:54.733", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13334", "post_type": "answer", "score": 11 } ]

[ { "body": "It means \"zen\" and I hope I do not have to explain what zen is in just a few\nsentences.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-04T09:18:40.627", "id": "13339", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-04T09:18:40.627", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13338", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "Yes, it does.\n\nIn Classical Japanese, たり was an auxiliary verb but in Modern Japanese, it is\na particle. The meaning and usage changed somewhat over time in that\npresently, it is used only in colloquial speech.\n\nRegarding your example phrase われ食べたり, I need to mention the fact that 食べる is a\nmodern verb; therefore, you should not combine it with the Classical auxiliary\nverb たり. The Classical versions of 食べる are 食ふ・食らふ and 食（た）ぐ.", "comment_count": 6, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-05T01:27:07.683", "id": "13342", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-05T01:27:07.683", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13341", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "If I may apply the native speakers' standards, [群]{ぐん} or [群]{む}れ looks really\nout of place with the other three words; It just does not belong in that\nparticular group of words.\n\nThere is a sense of \"officialness\" associated with the words 組, 団 and 班 with\nmembership, common purpose of existing, pecking order, etc. 群れ, however,\nrefers to a group of people that just happen to be someplace at the same time.\nThese people rarely form a social group.\n\nNow the difficult part --- the differences among 組, 団 and 班. I am just giving\nreal-life examples. There is a ton of exceptions, though, I warn you.\n\nIn schools (elementary thru high school), all students of each grade is\ndivided into several 組（and those are called 一年三組、二年B組, etc.）. If a teacher\ndecides to divide his 組 into a number of small groups for a group project or\nsomething, those small groups are most often called 班.\n\nA 班 is always a sub-group within a larger group. In some companies, a\ndepartment may be divided into 班's.\n\n団 is a group of people with the same or similar skills. It gives off a feeling\nof professionalism and often strong unity. Examples are circuses, orchestras,\nfire fighters, theatrical or ballet groups, etc.\n\nFinally, for the curious, the generic name for an organized crime group is\n[暴力団]{ぼうりょくだん} but the actual individual groups are most often named ～～[組]{ぐみ}\n（not くみ）. Some call themselves ～～会.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-05T13:44:42.747", "id": "13346", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-06T13:51:32.577", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-06T13:51:32.577", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13343", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 } ]

[ { "body": "Simply: お酒を一本下さい。\n\nBe careful, though, it means you want one bottle of rice wine.\n\nPS. It's just a deduction I came to personally, but the tidbit you wrote makes\nme recall all the situations I stumbled upon when drunken people, outsiders of\ncourse, kept on insulting the Japanese. It sounds like \"Bring me some booze,\nwould ya!?\". Just be careful when they're getting \"edgy\" with their opinions\non gaijins, because on many occasions, they have a reason to.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-06T23:38:08.647", "id": "13363", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-06T23:38:08.647", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "3776", "parent_id": "13347", "post_type": "answer", "score": -2 }, { "body": "As @dainichi has suggested in his comment I think you could use \n\n> ちょっと。おススメのお酒/日本酒ちょうだい。or \n> ちょっと。おススメのお酒/日本酒持ってきて。or \n> ちょっと。おススメのお酒/日本酒もらうわ。 \n>\n\netc. in a Japanese restaurant. If in [居酒屋]{いざかや} you would say \n\n> [熱燗]{あつかん}つけて。 \n> 一本つけて。 \n> [沢の鶴]{さわのつる}、[冷]{ひや}で。 \n>\n\netc., depending on what (type/brand) you want / how (hot/iced/warm/room\ntemperature) you want it.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-07T04:07:32.190", "id": "13364", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-07T04:13:34.037", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-07T04:13:34.037", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13347", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 }, { "body": "Say \"ano\" or \"chotto\" to get attention at beginning, both is polite.(Oi is\nreally rude) And the rest is just fine.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-07T14:48:43.753", "id": "13368", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-07T14:48:43.753", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4152", "parent_id": "13347", "post_type": "answer", "score": -1 } ]

[ { "body": "As far as I know, the most general term for an opponent or enemy is 敵【てき】.\nThis applies to enemies in games, as well.", "comment_count": 5, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-05T23:21:39.823", "id": "13349", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-05T23:21:39.823", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "384", "parent_id": "13348", "post_type": "answer", "score": 10 }, { "body": "Native speaker here. 敵{てき}キャラ might be what you are looking for. You could use\n敵 if you wanted to but that word is so general that it is used in a war in\nreal life as well. 敵 just does not give off the fun feeling that 敵キャラ and\nモンスター do for the player.", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-05T23:47:53.767", "id": "13350", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-06T01:16:48.007", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-06T01:16:48.007", "last_editor_user_id": "1797", "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13348", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "ものの is one word. It should be in your dictionary.\n\nものの is a conjunctive particle meaning けれども = \"even though\".\n\n\"Even though I tried to sleep by spreading futons on the tatami, I was unable\nto sleep because my back hurt.\"", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-06T07:38:17.857", "id": "13354", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-06T07:54:42.713", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-06T07:54:42.713", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13351", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 }, { "body": "As Tokyo Nagoya stated in his answer, in modern Japanese, ものの is considered\none word, a 接続助詞 (conjunctive particle).\n\nHowever, it does in fact consist of the noun 「もの」 and the genitive case-\nmarking particle 「の」. There is no elision occurring. Generally speaking, your\nthoughts on how this particle works are correct: it takes two nouns (or noun-\nforms) and makes on larger noun-form.\n\nHowever, the genitive case in Japanese can also mark the subject of an\nadnominal clause, for example:\n\n * 神の怒った日\n * 事故の起こるところ\n\nThese may look like they are connecting (神)の(怒こった日) and (事故)の(起こるところ), but\nwhat is actually happening is (神の怒こった)日 and (事故の起こった)ところ -- the 「の」 is marking\nthe subject of those adnominal clauses. This form of subject marking has\nexisted since before Old Japanese.\n\n「ものの」 is attested from the Heian Period onward, and though I was unable to\nfind any explanation of this construction in particular, I would hypothesize\nthat it is related to the noun-marking function.", "comment_count": 8, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-06T08:07:13.623", "id": "13356", "last_activity_date": "2021-12-02T21:31:30.723", "last_edit_date": "2021-12-02T21:31:30.723", "last_editor_user_id": "816", "owner_user_id": "384", "parent_id": "13351", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Again, ものなら is one word. It is a conjunctive particle that has the same\nmeaning as ～～としたら = \"if one were to try ~~ing\".\n\n\"In the old days, if a young woman were to try going out with a man just the\ntwo of them, it would be the talk of the town.\"\n\nSVP DO NOT take my English TL too literally; English is my worst language.", "comment_count": 5, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-06T07:57:05.787", "id": "13355", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-06T07:57:05.787", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13352", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "I'm Japanese and I could not figure out the difference by myself. But after I\ngoogled it and read the answer, I was convinced of the difference. I realized\nthat I have been using each word on a case-by-case basis.\n\nWell, only about ほとんど, you have to care about the use cases, whereas you can\nuse ほぼ in every cases which means \"almost\" or \"about\". \nYou could use ほとんど only when the goal is clear or the max is 100% or the\nminimum is 0%. For example, you could say \"宿題は、ほとんど終わった\" but you could not say\n\"学校まで歩いてほとんど１時間かかる\".\n\nWith the phrase of \"宿題は、ほとんど終わった\", the goal is clear. The goal is finishing\nthe homework. But with the phrase of \"学校まで歩いてほとんど1時間かかる\" there is no goal and\nneither its max. It just takes about an hour. That's all. In the both of these\ntwo cases, you could use \"ほぼ\" like \"ほぼ終わった\" or \"ほぼ1時間かかる\".\n\n”プールの中の水は、ほとんど満杯である” = Good \nBecause there is the max. The max is fully filled water.\n\n\"プールの中の水は、ほとんど1000mlである\" = Bad \nIt just says, it is 1000ml. It doesn't say about the goal.\n\n~~By the way, they both can be used in both positive and negative.~~ Read\n@ちょこれーと's answer about this.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-07T15:30:28.217", "id": "13369", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-08T06:56:04.233", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-08T06:56:04.233", "last_editor_user_id": "4128", "owner_user_id": "4128", "parent_id": "13367", "post_type": "answer", "score": 18 }, { "body": "1. ほとんど sounds more colloquial than ほぼ to me (when they can be used interchangeably) \n\n 2. You can say ほとんど~~ない but not ほぼ~~ない for \"almost no~/hardly/rarely\"\n\n> 彼のことはほとんど知りません。I hardly know him. \n> (*彼のことはほぼ知りません。) \n> 私はほとんど(=めったに)映画には行かない。I rarely go to the movies. \n> (*私はほぼ映画には行かない。) \n> この町にはほとんど公園がない。The town has practically no parks \n> (*この町にはほぼ公園がない。)\n\n 3. ほぼ can be used for 約 before a numeral\n\n> 郵便局はここからほぼ(=約)100メートルです。 \n> (*郵便局はここからほとんど100メートルです。)\n\n 4. ほとんど can be a noun. \n\n> ほとんどの人(most people)/ ほとんどが~ / ほとんどを~ etc. \n> (*ほぼの人 / *ほぼが~ / *ほぼを~ --- (ほぼ全ての/が/を would be fine))", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-08T00:00:39.520", "id": "13372", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-08T00:10:00.133", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-08T00:10:00.133", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13367", "post_type": "answer", "score": 12 } ]

[ { "body": "Yes, there is! Primary use is the one you are already aware of. ごちそうさま is also\nused after hearing something lovey-dovey like your boyfriend's \"your wish is\nmy command\".", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-08T02:05:41.670", "id": "13374", "last_activity_date": "2019-07-01T10:51:32.657", "last_edit_date": "2019-07-01T10:51:32.657", "last_editor_user_id": "7810", "owner_user_id": "4157", "parent_id": "13373", "post_type": "answer", "score": 11 } ]

[ { "body": "(I was just about to do a little research before answering this when I was\ndelighted to see a citation to another answer from me to a different question:\n[Where does the phrase 「ノリが悪い」 come from and what is the\nmeaning?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/6587/where-does-the-\nphrase-))\n\nRather than repeat this answer, I think it is enough to say that you have the\nequivalent expression in English and, as often happens, we have found an\nalmost identical metaphor in Japanese:\n\n> 調子 means tune or tone.\n>\n> 乗る usually means ride, which is roughly an intransitive equivalent of carry\n> (\"allow oneself to be carried\")\n>\n> \"Don't get carried away\" is in a literal sense similar to synchronising\n> one's action to the music in place of \"thinking before you act\".\n\nIt is also an example of how almost identical expressions in English and\nJapanese differ because they are passive in one language but not the other (or\ntransitive in one language but intransitive in the other)- in this case we\n\"get carried\" in English (passive) but ride in Japense (active). Both are\nintransitive.\n\nYou can remember this as a colloquial expression and use it in polite company\nas you would in English but it is also a nice example of how a basic verb we\nlearn quite early in our Japanese studies can have as many and often similar\nmeanings as its English equivalent. Other examples include 取る・to take or 飛ぶ・to\nfly.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-09T07:36:30.800", "id": "13376", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-10T10:50:04.713", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T08:18:27.500", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "1556", "parent_id": "13375", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "When I was in college I had a Japanese professor who was also a lesbian. She\nreferred to her SO as パートナー, and other teachers referred to that professor's\nSO as パートナー. It's possible that this choice of words was because it was most\nfamiliar to us as American students, but I feel that in Japan as well this\nwould be the safest, most 'PC' way to address someone's SO. If I were to ask\nher about her SO I'd say パートナーさん.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-11T02:21:37.373", "id": "13388", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-11T02:21:37.373", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1797", "parent_id": "13377", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 } ]

[ { "body": "あなたが = あなたのことが\n\nIt's repeated for emphasis.\n\nI think it's like... I can't stop (this feeling) anymore, I miss you, I really\nmiss you.", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-09T15:37:03.027", "id": "13379", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-09T15:48:03.637", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-09T15:48:03.637", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13378", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 }, { "body": "A native speaker told me it's a blend of あなたが恋しい and あなたのことが恋しい. She was even\nkind enough to translate it:\n\n> I miss you, [everything] about you.\n\n(You need the _everything_ to make it make sense in English.)", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-12T12:54:51.367", "id": "13400", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-12T12:54:51.367", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1187", "parent_id": "13378", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "There are two separate things to pick apart here.\n\nIn your two examples, as you suspect の is really performing two different\nfunctions in your two examples. It's only in 「泳ぐのが難しい」that it's really turning\nthe verb phrase into a noun; in 「赤いの」it's acting as a placeholder noun, which\nis modified by the adjective.\n\nYou can't use もの to nominalise a verb phrase - 「泳ぐもの」will always mean\n\"swimmer\" or \"the one that swims\", not \"swimming\". (as an aside, you can also\nuse 「泳ぐ事」to mean \"swimming\")\n\nNow, as to your question about the difference between の and もの when used as a\nplaceholder noun, there is a difference in nuance.\n\n先週買ったもの - the thing I bought last week 先週かったの - the one that I bought last\nweek\n\n「先週かったの」implies that there are many things under consideration, but the one\nI'm interested in is the one I bought last week. With もの you're just talking\nabout a singular object, but the implication with の is that it's a specific\nobject out of many.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-10T10:07:40.657", "id": "13382", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-10T10:07:40.657", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4164", "parent_id": "13380", "post_type": "answer", "score": 9 } ]

[ { "body": "The subject of ～だ in この本は読むのに～だ is \"この本\" and the subject of ～だ in この本は読むのが～だ\nis implicit \"I\".\n\nGrammtically\n\nこの本は読むのに～だ\n\n= (この本は)(読むのに～だ)\n\nThis book is ～ to read.\n\nand\n\nこの本は読むのが～だ\n\n= (この本は読むのが)(～だ)\n\nIt is ～ to read this book.\n\n(Hmm.. I can't find any differences between these English translations,\nthough.)\n\nThe reason why この本は読むのに簡単だ sounds odd is the fact 本 cannot be 簡単, only reading\nbook can be 簡単.", "comment_count": 5, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-12T13:52:08.633", "id": "13401", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-12T13:59:22.957", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-12T13:59:22.957", "last_editor_user_id": "3849", "owner_user_id": "3849", "parent_id": "13381", "post_type": "answer", "score": -3 }, { "body": "As I understand it \"no ni\" highlights the noun, and \"no ga\" is highlighting\nthe action. So\n\nこの本は読むのに簡単だ。\n\nmeans that the book is simple to read. The book is written in a nice way.\n\nIn the case of \"no ga\" you are highlighting the action. So\n\nこの本は読むのが簡単だ。\n\nactually means \"the act of reading this book is simple\". The book has a large\nfont perhaps, or the pages are not stuck together.\n\nSimilarly:\n\n声を出して読むのがうまい - good at reading aloud\n\nベッドで読むのによさそうな物 - a thing that is good bedtime reading", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-20T16:34:12.480", "id": "13462", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-20T16:34:12.480", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4071", "parent_id": "13381", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "I would translate the first sentence slightly different.\n\n```\n\n この本は読むのに簡単だ。To read this book is easy.\n この本は読むのが簡単だ。This book is easy to read.\n \n```\n\nAlthough both sentences share the same subject(\"この本\"), the first one directs\nyour focus to the action \"read\" and explains how it is while the second one\ndescribes the book itself.\n\nSo, put it differently, you can shorten the second one like この本は簡単だ。 while\nkeeping its meaning exactly the same.\n\nAnd aside from grammatical perspective, we hardly use the first one. It just\ndoesn't sound smooth. You would hear この本は、読むことが簡単だ。 or the second one more\noften.\n\n料理するのには忙しい ?? You can say this, but the construct is different (you put the\nextra 「は」). You probably want to post another question for that.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-20T09:20:07.093", "id": "14957", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-20T09:20:07.093", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4936", "parent_id": "13381", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "It almost doesn't matter, because you're going to be learning them both\nquickly enough that it won't make much of a difference which one you start\nwith. And you'll be using them both extensively every day, just as you use\nboth lower case and upper case every day in English.\n\nBut still, it's a sensible question. Which one _should_ you choose?\n\nYou can make arguments either way. I started with hiragana, and that's what\nmakes the most sense to me. In a way, hiragana is more basic; it's more\ncommon, and most of the Japanese vocabulary is more normally written in\nhiragana than katakana. But starting with katakana could make sense, too! If\nyou're in Japan and barely know any Japanese, knowing katakana will let you\nrecognize at least some words borrowed from English. And unless you're\nChinese, your name will most likely be written with katakana.\n\nBut really, you can do it either way. Just learn to write them both as soon as\nyou can, and make sure you learn to write them the right way, with the proper\nstroke order.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-10T20:02:02.353", "id": "13384", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-10T20:02:02.353", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13383", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 } ]

[ { "body": "It can refer simply to age, but especially in the context of school it will\nrefer to someone in a grade above you. It's a similar thing in work or other\norganizations: your 先輩 are the ones who came first and outrank you. Outside of\na strict hierarchy (like school or work) I think it just refers to the idea of\nsomeone being older, as in [彼は私の5年先輩です。 (He is five years my\nsenior.)](http://eow.alc.co.jp/search?q=%E5%85%88%E8%BC%A9&ref=sa) It may also\nbe worth noting that dictionary entries tend to roll up the idea of simply\nbeing born first into the same definition as seniority in academia or in arts,\nso this may be more of a reference to someone who is more wise or\nknowledgeable rather than _just_ being older. For example I don't think you\nreally refer to elderly people as senpai.\n\n_Technically_ your classmate is your 同輩 (douhai), although as istrasci (and\nformerly snailboat) reminds us this term is not the most common, and instead\n同級生 or other more common terms would be used (emphasis that this describes the\nrelationship, _not_ the term you would use to talk to them). These people\nwould be _addressed_ with kun/chan/san/whatever else. When in doubt, just\nstick within the established hierarchy. As a (pro?)noun used to address\npeople, though, you have senpai but not much else.", "comment_count": 5, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-11T00:56:56.453", "id": "13387", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-11T23:59:09.613", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-11T23:59:09.613", "last_editor_user_id": "1797", "owner_user_id": "1797", "parent_id": "13386", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 }, { "body": "In context of some organization, Senpai means came earlier and is not\nnecessarily based on age.\n\nOne can call younger people 'Senpai' in corporation.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-11T06:35:09.627", "id": "13389", "last_activity_date": "2015-10-23T05:46:06.513", "last_edit_date": "2015-10-23T05:46:06.513", "last_editor_user_id": "1145", "owner_user_id": "1145", "parent_id": "13386", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "A classmate would never call another sempai. That is reserved for people in\nthe year(s) above you, or people who began your job before you. (You say \"just\none year apart\" but that one year makes a big difference and is important.) In\na class at school, everyone is equal, regardless of their actual birth date.\nShe would call him [name]-kun or [name] with no honorific if they were close.\nIf they met for the first time outside school, it would still be ridiculous\nfor her to use sempai because that's only for school/work. If you want her to\nuse something besides his name to his face, it has to be a teasing nickname,\nlike Mamoru would call Usagi \"Odango-atama\" in Sailormoon.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-14T11:58:42.757", "id": "13423", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-14T11:58:42.757", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4188", "parent_id": "13386", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "Yes, \" _sempai_ \" **_can_ be used** to address a student of the same age, or\neven possibly someone of the same year, if he/she entered the group before you\n(for example, if he/she joined the club in the spring semester and you joined\nin the fall semester).\n\nAdapted from part of my answer to a question on Anime & Manga SE\n[here](https://anime.stackexchange.com/a/25764/8134):\n\n_Sempai_ (「先輩」) are upperclassmen **in some sense** , to whom a Japanese\nperson will always be _kouhai_ (「後輩」, underclassmen) throughout their lives\nafter graduation.\n\n_Sempai_ are **_often_ older, but not always**: more important than age is the\nperson’s **year in school** _OR_ **number of years in the shared 部活／サークル／チーム**\n( _bukatsu_ /circle/team = student organization), **アルバイト** ( _arubaito_ =\npart-time job), **会社** ( _kaisha_ = company), **ボランティア活動** ( _borantia\nkatsudou_ = volunteering group), etc. **at the time that the _kouhai_ enters**\nsaid school, club, team, or company.\n\nFor example:\n\n * If you enter university as a freshman and meet a sophomore who is your own age, he/she is automatically your _sempai_ by virtue of being a grade ahead of you.\n * Even if you had graduated from the same class at the same high school and are the same age, if you had 浪人した ( _rouninshita_ = taken a year off after failing a college entrance exam and attending 予備校 [ _yobikou_ = cram school specifically for entering university]) and he/she didn't, now he/she is your _sempai_ from college onwards.\n * I'm a member of the manga student group at my university in Japan, and we all call each other by “-san.” Even though they're all younger than me (since I'm a grad student and they're undergrads), it would be totally inappropriate for me to start calling them in 呼び捨て ( _yobisute_ = without a respectful name suffix) because they either 1) are my _sempai_ in terms of number of years of membership in the club, or 2) they entered the club at the same time as me.\n * Even if you have not seen your _sempai_ in decades and you are now both middle-aged and working at different companies of equal repute, when you meet again he/she is still your superior to whom you must look up to, defer to, and serve; there is no evening-out of level in Japanese _sempai/kouhai_ culture. There is no analogous system to this in Western culture.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2015-10-23T04:57:50.530", "id": "28826", "last_activity_date": "2015-10-23T05:07:42.663", "last_edit_date": "2017-04-13T12:54:51.837", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "4547", "parent_id": "13386", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "The biggest mistake you have made is in trusting that translation, which is\nnot even close to the original.\n\nコケ does not mean \"fool\"; It is not even a noun. It is from the verb こける, which\nmeans \"to trip over\", \"to fall down\", etc.\n\nっぷり comes from ふ り, which means \"the manner / way in which one performs an\naction\".\n\n食べっぷりがいい, for instance, means that someone eats a lot. 歌いっぷりがお父さんにそっくりね means\n\"The way you sing really resembles your father's.\"\n\nThus, コケっぷりもかわいいです means \"The way (someone) trips over is also cute.\" This\nphrase is very informal but certainly not slanguish at all. The コケ part is in\nkatakana because こける is a fairly informal verb and it looks and feels lighter\nand more animated written in katakana. The \"regular\" version is ころぶ.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-11T10:31:42.110", "id": "13391", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-11T11:04:35.743", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-11T11:04:35.743", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13390", "post_type": "answer", "score": 13 } ]

[ { "body": "You are correct, but there is a lot that is omitted due to implication here.\nIt's saying that when you travel, going from airport to airport, the\nimplication is that you frequently remove your shoes, so sandals are\nconvenient for doing so. Without that assumption, there's no other real\nbenefit that sandals provide over shoes.\n\n20+, 30+, 40+ years ago, this sentence would not have carried the same meaning\nwhen airport security was not as strict, and people would not have been taking\ntheir shoes on and off as much.\n\n* * *\n\n**EDIT** : From the comments, it seems that Japanese people frequently remove\ntheir shoes during a flight just as they do in their homes. So the implication\nof often removing shoes is likely more related to this than to airport\nsecurity measures.", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-11T16:10:06.483", "id": "13393", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-13T17:00:45.207", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-13T17:00:45.207", "last_editor_user_id": "78", "owner_user_id": "78", "parent_id": "13392", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "I'll take a shot in the dark, since this question was asked months ago.\n\nIf the potential form takes a subject marker が as its 'object' (here object\nrefers to its role in English), you can reduce it to the `NP P NP` form,\nwhich, for brevity's sake, is the simple adjectival descriptor like 犬が重い [the\ndog is heavy].\n\nWith the potential form, this becomes 誰か に 何か が できる [something was possible\nfor somebody]. By that reasoning, potential forms with が are emphasizing the\n_act_. Something was done that was of course unforgivable. This act was beyond\nforgiveness. Etc. etc.\n\nThe addition of はず+ない modifies the verb phrase--here はず refers to\n\"expectation\", which in this case is societal. That's why \"beyond forgiveness\"\ncorresponds well as translation--ない is sort of an adjective, and \"beyond\nforgiveness\" is an adjectival phrase. Both the Japanese sentence and this\ntranslation describe the _act_ , which is also a plus.", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-12-12T04:35:53.410", "id": "13687", "last_activity_date": "2014-02-12T10:36:06.913", "last_edit_date": "2014-02-12T10:36:06.913", "last_editor_user_id": "3131", "owner_user_id": "3131", "parent_id": "13394", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 }, { "body": "I generally don't like answering with an English translation, but the meaning\nof this phrase is relatively simple. It means: \" **with no reason for\nforgiveness** \".\n\nWhat that means in the context of your story is impossible to determine\nwithout more context.\n\nはず does not mean anything out of the ordinary. See [What is the difference\nbetween 「はずがない」 and 「わけがない」?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/171/384)\nfor a complete explanation.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-12-12T13:51:47.957", "id": "13694", "last_activity_date": "2013-12-12T13:51:47.957", "last_edit_date": "2017-04-13T12:43:44.397", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "384", "parent_id": "13394", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 }, { "body": "To native speakers, 「[許]{ゆる}せるはずもなく」 would make enough sense without further\ncontext. All that is unclear is who is not forgiving whom, but OP would surely\nknow who would be in the position to forgive or not forgive someone. If OP\ndoes not, then he has not been able to follow the story --- with or without\nthis particular phrase.\n\nSeriously, it is nothing new seeing sentences ending in [連用形]{れんようけい} even in\nprose, let alone in poetry. In poetry, it IS the norm. Ending a sentence in\n連用形 allows the reader/listener use his imagination and complete the sentence\nhimself. The reader/listener also has the choice to not complete the sentence\nby pretending that it ended in [終止形]{しゅうしけい} --- in this case, a「許せるはずもなかった」.\n\nThe 「も」 is a key word here though no one has mentioned it so far. It suggests\nthat the event of Person A not forgiving Person B was completely \"expected\".\nIt is the emphatic も.\n\n\"As expected, (Person A) was totally unable to forgive (Person B).\"", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-02-11T00:12:58.717", "id": "14459", "last_activity_date": "2014-02-11T00:12:58.717", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13394", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 }, { "body": "**はず, 筈** : This word stems from a deep metaphor. 筈を付ける means to nock an\narrow, that is to place (付ける) the nock (筈) of an arrow on the string of a bow.\nSo when you're saying something like 「先生もいらっしゃるはずだよ」 imagine you have an arrow\nwith the phrase 「先生もいらっしゃる」 written on it and that it's on your string. ＜～はず＞\nmeans that the situation has the potential to be true, because several other\nthings have \"nocked its arrow,\" and if the arrow were released it'd be likely\nto hit its mark (be true).\n\nSo, 「許せるはずもない」 means that there is no potential for 「許せる」 to be true. The も\npart of it means that that's in addition to something else, or that even\nsomething as simple as the potential for 「許せる」 is lacking. It's very simple\nwhen you see it this way.\n\n＜許せる＞ forgive someone \n＜話せるはず＞ expectation/potential for forgiving someone \n＜話せるはずはない＞ There is no expectation/potential for X being able to forgive Y. \n＜話せるはずもない＞ There is not even expectation/potential for X being able to forgive\nY.\n\nSo, I'd translate it: \"There was no way X could forgive Y ..., ...\"", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-02-12T11:33:38.967", "id": "14468", "last_activity_date": "2015-09-29T19:51:57.497", "last_edit_date": "2015-09-29T19:51:57.497", "last_editor_user_id": "3437", "owner_user_id": "4678", "parent_id": "13394", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "お _o_ is an \"honorific prefix\" (read about [honorific speech in\nJapanese](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorific_speech_in_Japanese#Honorific_prefixes)\non Wikipedia), which is a more polite way to refer to someone's or your own\ngrandfather/mother/sister/etc.\n\nThere is also お父さん _otōsan_ \"father\", おばあさん _obāsan_ \"grandmother\" and お兄さん\n_oniisan_ \"big brother\", which fit the same pattern.\n\nWe have a few questions about お and its \"brother\" ご [on this\nsite](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/search?q=%E3%81%8A+%E3%81%94), which\nmight be of interest. You'll probably understand the meaning of お from reading\nthese questions alone.", "comment_count": 6, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-11T23:19:13.900", "id": "13396", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-12T09:41:52.623", "last_edit_date": "2017-04-13T12:43:44.207", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "1628", "parent_id": "13395", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "し is used here to create a list, and I'd translate your example sentence as\n\"My tooth hurts, I don't want to go to the dentist... it sucks.\" (lit: \"I'm\ntroubled\")\n\nIt's _sort of_ like や in that it creates a list, but as I'm thinking about it,\nし is used more for a list of reasons that culminate in a conclusion stated\nlater in the sentence. I might describe my girlfriend as follows:\n頭がいいし、かわいいし、日本語を勉強するし、お互いに話しやすいし、本当に好きだよ。\n\nHere, I'm listing out various reasons I like her. In your example, you're\nlisting out reasons that you're troubled. Hope that helps!", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-12T05:10:19.613", "id": "13398", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-12T05:10:19.613", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4176", "parent_id": "13397", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "I am surprised that you appear to find the combination unusual. も gets\nattached to another particle very often. It is more than common.\n\nThe sentence is saying that Ａさんの健康に関して、特にその食事に関しての心配 undermines two things --\nＡさんの心 and 家族の心. It undermines not only A's mental health but also the whole\nfamily's. This も is to emphasize the last item on the list.\n\nOther examples of \"Particle + も\"\n\n> 「田中さんはアメリカの色々な地域へ行ったことがある。カリフォルニアやニューヨークはもちろん、南部 **へも** 行ったことがある。」\n>\n> 「佐藤さんにはきれいな奥さんがいる。私 **にも** いる。」\n>\n> 「山田さんや池田さんとゲームをしたことがある。シュワルツネッガーさん **とも** ある。」", "comment_count": 6, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-13T07:48:26.407", "id": "13406", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-13T09:34:17.063", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T08:18:27.500", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13405", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 } ]

[ { "body": "You do not need to say anything nor are you even expected to in that kind of\nsituation. Many, if not all, Japanese indeed do not. I myself usually just nod\nor bow lightly at the clerk without a word or nod while saying どうも without\nenunciating it.\n\nSaying ただいま sounds strange to me unless you reside in the hotel and you know\nthe clerk very well. お疲れ様です may be said by some if not by me, and I cannot\nactively recommend that you say it. Again, you can say it with no problem if\nyou already know the clerk personally.\n\nIn a ryokan, however, a whole different set of customs are followed, in that a\nfar greater amount of conversation takes place between the staff and guests\nthan in a hotel. I will not get into that here, though.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-14T00:34:20.547", "id": "13410", "last_activity_date": "2019-02-27T16:11:25.360", "last_edit_date": "2019-02-27T16:11:25.360", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13408", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 } ]

[ { "body": "This ても means \"though/although\" if I have to translate it by itself. It is\nused when you want to say that a negative result will follow if you\nobeyed/agreed to/took seriously what the other person is saying.\n\nちょっと待ってくれ。そんなに急かされても、転んでしまうよ means:\n\n\"Wait a sec! Though you want me to go faster, I'll only fall down (if I did).\"\n\nObviously, I did not employ direct TL. The original is in the passive voice\n急かされても = \"if I am forced to go faster\".\n\nWith this in mind, you may watch this and actually laugh at the very first\nexchange between the two men in this comedy.\n<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUp-1gAhWGw>\n\nGuy A:「おじゃましますか。」\n\nGuy B:「いや聞かれても。」\n\nThis is the ても we are discussing. The negative result is unmentioned here but\nit would be something like こまってしまう. I will not try to make it sound more\nnatural since the comedy is in Osaka dialect.\n\nPoint is the usual greeting is おじゃまします without a か as you probably know, but\nGuy A says it with か as if it were a question. This puts Guy B in a situation\nwhere he would not know what to say, so he goes 「いや聞かれても I wouldn't know how\nto respond/react.」", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-14T01:28:16.597", "id": "13412", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-14T02:11:48.143", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-14T02:11:48.143", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13409", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "Yes, you are right.\n\n(The system requires an answer to contain at least thirty characters. This is\na filler text to meet this requirement.)", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-14T12:39:10.793", "id": "13426", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-14T12:39:10.793", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "15", "parent_id": "13415", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "Yes, you can say 何人目【なんにんめ】. You can add 目 to a counter regardless of whether\nit's attached to a specific number like 3 or a question word like 何, so you\ncan say things like 何人目 or 何代目. Here's an example of the latter from\n[ALC](http://eow.alc.co.jp/search?q=%E4%BD%95%E4%BB%A3%E7%9B%AE&ref=sa):\n\n> 「クリントンはアメリカの **何代目の** 大統領ですか？」「第42代大統領です」 \n> \"Where was Clinton in the chronological order of Presidents?\" \"He was the\n> 42nd president.\"\n\nMore generally, you can say 何番目, which means \"what number [in a sequence]\".\nAmusingly, ALC includes almost the exact same example for 何番目:\n\n> 「クリントンはアメリカの **何番目の** 大統領ですか？」「第42代大統領です」 \n> \"Where was Clinton in the chronological order of Presidents?\" \"He was the\n> 42nd president.\"\n\nAs you note, this is difficult to express in English, so you might use this\nsort of expression in Japanese when we'd normally talk about cardinal numbers\nin English. Take a look at the following example from Kenkyūsha's New\nJapanese-English Dictionary:\n\n> あなたの本当の病名を言い当てたのは **何人目の** 医者でしたか。 \n> How many doctors did you see before one guessed the name of your illness?\n\nNote that the Japanese asks about ordinality (what position in the list of\ndoctors), while the corresponding English translation asks about cardinality\n(the total number of doctors).", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-14T10:13:22.217", "id": "13417", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-14T10:13:22.217", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13416", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 } ]

[ { "body": "If you want to say \"the country I came from\" you're stuck saying 出身.\nGrammatically it feels odd that you can't use から how you want to in noun\nmodification, but it's just... not said that way. I think that's why we have\nthe word 出身 in regular use to begin with: it means \"where someone comes from.\"\nSince the construction can't be made using から, the question will always use 出身\nas well, so there's not _really_ any conflict.\n\n> あなたはどこから来ましたか？ \n> アメリカから来ました。\n\nUnfortunately there's no good way to make the country the subject, so we have\nto use 出身 in its place:\n\n> あなたはどこの(国の)出身ですか？ \n> アメリカ出身です。\n\nSemantically I think this has the same meaning as the \"来た国\" idea you were\ntrying to go for. You could also say 私の母国はアメリカ or something like that but\nyou're still using a noun to replace that awkward grammar.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-14T10:51:43.210", "id": "13419", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-14T11:08:29.577", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-14T11:08:29.577", "last_editor_user_id": "1797", "owner_user_id": "1797", "parent_id": "13418", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "In colloquial speech, 全然 ＝ 全然ダメ. You can treat this 全然 as a 形容動詞 (I just do\nnot like the word \"na-adjective\" because it does not exist in Japanese.). So,\nit is quite natural to say 全然だった in informal speech.\n\nダンスとかあったら全然だったと思う, therefore means:\n\n\"I think I would have been a total failure if I had had to dance or\nsomething.\"", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-14T11:51:41.960", "id": "13422", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-14T16:26:40.003", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-14T16:26:40.003", "last_editor_user_id": "78", "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13421", "post_type": "answer", "score": 9 } ]

[ { "body": "Sure, a word that has at least one kanji can begin with kana. Generally, they\ncome from combinations with independent words that are usually written in\nkana, or they come from combinations with prefixes like お- or ご-, although\nthere are other prefixes that can form words like these as well.\n\nFor example, か弱い is now a single lexical word, originally consisting of 弱い\nplus the prefix か-:\n\n> か弱い\n\nThere's another possibility, too. Words are sometimes written in kana-kanji\nmixtures, particularly for technical reasons (a kanji is missing from a font)\nor because a given kanji is too rare or too difficult for the intended\naudience. For example, I once saw 一生懸命 written 一生けん命. And it's possible for\nthe kanji which is replaced with kana to begin the word.\n\nFor example, 斡旋 might be written あっ旋 for this reason. When I search the\n[_Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese\n(BCCWJ)_](http://www.kotonoha.gr.jp/shonagon/), I see 53 results for 「あっ旋」 and\n281 for 「斡旋」. My speculation is that this is because 斡 is not a common kanji,\nlisted as 2891 out of the 3500 most common kanji in [the frequency chart\npublished by the Agency of Cultural\nAffairs](http://www.bunka.go.jp/kokugo_nihongo/bunkasingi/kanji_24/pdf/sanko_3.pdf).\n\nAlso, as Tsuyoshi Ito points out in a comment, 斡 is not included on the [Jōyō\nkanji\nchart](http://www.bunka.go.jp/bunkashingikai/soukai/pdf/kaitei_kanji_toushin.pdf).\nAs discussed [here](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/6727/do-\nnative-speakers-consciously-use-phonetic-elements-\nin-%E5%BD%A2%E5%A3%B0%E6%96%87%E5%AD%97#comment17364_6730), in some contexts\nnon-Jōyō kanji are avoided, so this may be another reason why 斡旋 might be\nwritten あっ旋.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-14T12:23:00.257", "id": "13425", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-14T13:03:26.880", "last_edit_date": "2017-04-13T12:43:44.397", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13424", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 }, { "body": "カツ丼 / かつ丼\n\nお好み焼き (I know what you are going to say about that お but we never say 好み焼き.)\n\nフッ素\n\nリン酸\n\nあ行、か行、さ行, etc.\n\nあ段、い段、う段, etc.\n\nI could probably go on without looking at anything if I had the time.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-14T12:49:59.953", "id": "13427", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-14T12:49:59.953", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13424", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Needless to say, both have the same meaning and both are informal.\n\nちょっと待っ **て** is more versatile in that basically anyone, regardless of age,\ngender and other general characteristics of the speaker, can use it in nearly\nall informal situations where one wants to ask another person to wait a\nsecond.\n\nちょっと待っ **た** fairly strictly chooses the speakers and situations. Male\nspeakers use it much more often than female speakers. The phrase sounds a\nlittle more curt / urgent / dramatic, etc. to our native ears, which is\nprobably why it is used in fiction often. If I may say this, I DO NOT\nrecommend that a Japanese-learner use this phrase actively unless he is nearly\nfluent and capable of keeping the other parts of his speech at the same\ninformal and/or lively level.\n\nIn comparison, the phrase ちょっと待 **て** , mentioned above in the comments by\n@Snailboat, sounds more like a serious order than a request. With the small っ,\nit sounds more like a request.", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-15T01:16:12.860", "id": "13432", "last_activity_date": "2021-10-05T14:44:58.463", "last_edit_date": "2021-10-05T14:44:58.463", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13428", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "Yes, it can have either meaning. English allows a distinction due to the fact\nthat there are two clauses involved (removing the negative, 'I want' and 'to\ndo (some/any)thing'), so it allows negation in either clause. Japanese has a\nsingle clause, and so negation has to end up in a single location. So the\ndistinction is determined purely contextually - 何もしたくない can be either 'I want\nto do nothing' or 'I don't want to do anything'. (And if you think about it,\nthese are extremely similar, and it's more of a quirk of English grammar that\nyou can somehow distinguish the two in English.)\n\nIf you wanted to specify the second, you might reword it as したいことがない, 'there\nisn't anything I want to do'.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-14T20:31:52.777", "id": "13431", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-14T20:31:52.777", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "3639", "parent_id": "13429", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "The negative form …したくない means “WANT(NOT(…)).” For example, 山に登りたくない means the\nspeaker wants to avoid climbing a mountain.\n\nTo express “NOT(WANT(…)),” we have to use other constructs such as\n山に登りたいのではない.\n\nCompare the following examples.\n\n 1. 竜とは **戦いたくない** が、姫を助ける方法はほかにない。\n 2. 竜と **戦いたいわけではない** が、姫を助ける方法はほかにない。\n\nIn the first example, the speaker wants to avoid fighting against the dragon.\nIn the second example, the speaker is just saying that it is not that he/she\nwants to fight against the dragon.\n\nYour notation related to P = “do anything” is ambiguous because it does not\nspecify how the negation interacts with the quantifier implicit in word\n_anything_. To avoid this, we should make the quantifier explicit. Then\n何もしたくない means ∀x. WANT(NOT(do x)), that is, the speaker wants to be free from\nall actions.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-15T02:10:06.653", "id": "13433", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-15T04:18:29.927", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-15T04:18:29.927", "last_editor_user_id": "15", "owner_user_id": "15", "parent_id": "13429", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 }, { "body": "It’s true that 何もしたくない only has one interpretation (“I don’t want to do\nanything”) as other answers pointed out. But you aren’t out of options.\n\nThe reason we can’t use the second negation pattern is because we can’t put a\nnegative marker on し followed by たい because たい cannot agglutinate onto ない.\n\nHowever, we can get around this.\n\nIf we make the ない adverbial via ないで, we can put a verb of existence after it\nand stick the たい onto that verb. This gets around the agglutination\nrestriction.\n\nSo:\n\n何もしないでいたい\n\n“I want to be doing nothing”\n\nThere is a progressive or stative aspect to this sentence so it isn’t a\nperfect equivalent of the English “I want to not do anything” but it conveys\nthe idea. However, it does not work well for many verbs.\n\nInstead of trying to express “I want not to” try expressing “I’d rather not”\n“I’d prefer not to” “I want to avoid”. Stuff like “〜するのはちょっと…” “〜する気分じゃない”\n“するのを避けたい” “〜しないでおこう” etc.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2023-03-01T08:14:47.943", "id": "98749", "last_activity_date": "2023-03-01T08:14:47.943", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "22756", "parent_id": "13429", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "As you said, 「行っ **てて** 」 is the colloquial contraction of 「行っ **ていて** 」 and\nwe almost always use the contracted form in informal speech.\n\nThere is, however, a fairly big difference in meaning between 「先に行っ **て** 」\nand 「先に行っ **てて** 」.\n\n「先に行って」 simply means \"You go first.\"\n\n「先に行ってて」 means \"You go first and wait for me/us.\" or \"You go first and I/We\nwill follow you.\"", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-15T10:12:48.257", "id": "13436", "last_activity_date": "2017-07-01T12:35:34.567", "last_edit_date": "2017-07-01T12:35:34.567", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13434", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 }, { "body": "先に行ってて means \"he/she\" **said** he will go first. \"て\" means that someone said\nthe phrase .", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-09-17T15:54:52.337", "id": "18697", "last_activity_date": "2014-09-17T15:54:52.337", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "7294", "parent_id": "13434", "post_type": "answer", "score": -2 } ]

[ { "body": "The latter, passive.\n\ncf. やられた！", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-15T13:08:13.523", "id": "13438", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-15T13:08:13.523", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13437", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "It is 猫に逃げられた, which expresses the fact that the speaker has suffered some\ndamage from the event. 私は can be placed at the beginning but it is not\nessential. Native speakers would omit it over 95% of the time.\n\n猫が逃げられた makes no sense whatsoever.\n\nHowever, something like 猫がネズミに逃げられた。 makes sense. The cat is the one that\nsuffered damage from letting the mouse go in this sentence.", "comment_count": 14, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-15T13:28:49.260", "id": "13439", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-15T13:28:49.260", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13437", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "You may be reading too much into this; It is pretty simple.\n\nVerb A + ようと + Verb B = \"do B\" so as to / in order to / for the purpose of \"do\nA\".\n\nA is your goal / purpose. B is the method you are taking to achieve A.\n\nひとまず心を落ち着けようと、飲みかけのオレンジジュースに手を伸ばす。 means:\n\n\"I extend my arm to the unfinished (glass of) orange juice so as to relax\nmyself for now.\"", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-16T09:51:31.973", "id": "13445", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-16T09:51:31.973", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13441", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "According to <http://kakijun.jp/page/uri06200.html> citing the 康煕字典, 瓜 used to\nbe written with 5 strokes. Those strokes were 「ノ」「ノ」「レ」、テン、はらい (the down left\nas the top part, then down left as the left side, then a down stroke with a\nhook to the right at the end, then a mark against that one, and finally a\nstroke sweeping down and right from the top right of the first down-left\nstroke. (Probably the reason it changed to six is due to looking at print\nfonts -- Cf. 比べる - stroke count for 比 is 4. but on many fonts I cannot imagine\nhow you get the bottom part to look like printed fonts).\n\nAlso from kakijun, 牙 was simplified and had two forms but one was removed\nrecently in a simplification for the same of computer fonts! The stroke\nreduction was done to make it easier to write.\n\nI don't see any info on the other two where I'm looking...\n\nThis is for ちょこれーと ... because I don't have the rep points to write beneath\nthe Q, but to write 邑 with 6 strokes was intriguing enough that I wanted to\nfigure out how. Answer: 3 strokes for the mouth. Then a line down, then an 乙\nand a line between.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-16T08:23:21.133", "id": "13443", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-16T12:37:05.983", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-16T12:37:05.983", "last_editor_user_id": "4091", "owner_user_id": "4091", "parent_id": "13442", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "There are currently 1,006 kanji that are taught in elementary schools and\nthose are named 教育漢字. It is only these 1,006 kanji that are given \"official\"\nstroke counts by 文部科学省, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and\nTechnology.\n\nStrange as it may seem, the other kanji simply do not have official stroke\ncounts. What that means is that it is left to the discretion of the individual\npublisher and dictionary author.\n\nThe 1,006 kanji are listed\n[here](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%AD%A6%E5%B9%B4%E5%88%A5%E6%BC%A2%E5%AD%97%E9%85%8D%E5%BD%93%E8%A1%A8)\non Wikipedia.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-16T08:50:57.633", "id": "13444", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-18T12:54:58.327", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-18T12:54:58.327", "last_editor_user_id": "571", "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13442", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "1. Yes, it is ok, but as you did in your example, one needs to insert で between the noun and なくてもいいです.\n\n明日でなくてもいいです = It does not have to be tomorrow.\n\n 2. If your book just says \"It is ok to use Verb/Noun + なければなりません\", it is misleading. With nouns, you need to insert は （or が） or で depending on what you want to say, for the phrase to make sense and be grammatical.\n\nThe two sentences below have totally different meanings:\n\nワインはなければなりません = Wine is definitely needed (in life). = We cannot live without\nwine.\n\nワインでなければなりません = It has to be wine (for a certain occasion or to go with a\ncertain dish).\n\nAnd yes, it is ok to use Adjective/Na-Adjective + なければなりません and your examples\nare both correct.", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-17T00:13:47.817", "id": "13447", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-17T00:21:09.047", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-17T00:21:09.047", "last_editor_user_id": "315", "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13446", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "I think that 雨が降るでしょう means more of a \"it kinda probably would rain\". Yes,\nweather forecasts say that, but Japanese people aren't noted for being\nparticularly direct.\n\nSimilarly, something like 私が猫だったら、ビデオをたくさん作るでしょう (pardon my possibly bad\nJapanese) would mean \"if I were a cat, I would probably make lots of videos\".\nIt doesn't mean \"if I were a cat, I would make lots of videos\"; the でしょう is\nonly there because you don't want to sound overly direct when making\nspeculations about hypothetical situtations.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-17T03:32:03.107", "id": "13449", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-17T03:32:03.107", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "2960", "parent_id": "13448", "post_type": "answer", "score": -1 }, { "body": "As someone who has never studied Japanese as a foreign language, I am often\namazed at how often I hear Japanese learners use the word \"volitional\" because\nthey seem to use it even where volition appears least relevant by Japanese\nstandards. Whether it rains or not has nothing to do with anyone's volition,\nfor it is a natural phenomenon.\n\nであろう：\n\nで: the 連用形 of the concluding auxiliary verb だ\n\nあろ: the 未然形 of the verb ある\n\nう: the inferring auxiliary verb\n\nでしょう is the polite form of であろう. Both mean the exact same thing in the context\n雨が降るでしょう（であろう）= \"It is mostly likely to rain.\".\n\nRegarding でしょう that you feel does not make sense at times, you may need to\ngive some examples for us to discuss it. It is indeed used in different\nsituations.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-18T11:42:22.587", "id": "13454", "last_activity_date": "2021-10-26T18:07:31.473", "last_edit_date": "2021-10-26T18:07:31.473", "last_editor_user_id": "30454", "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13448", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "Although the suffix -さ does turn adjectives into nouns, it also changes the\nmeaning:\n\n```\n\n 　　幸せ　　　　happiness\n 　　幸せさ　　　the degree of happiness\n \n```\n\nSince the suffix changes the meaning, 幸せさ isn't interchangeable with 幸せ.\nPresumably, the songwriter wrote しあわせ rather than しあわせさ because it had the\nmeaning they wanted to express.\n\n* * *\n\nBut meaning aside, how can you tell whether a 形容動詞 can also be a noun?\n\nGenerally speaking, if a 形容動詞【けいようどうし】 can also be used as a 名詞【めいし】,\ndictionaries will list them as both. Look for the abbreviations 名 (for 名詞) and\n形動 (for 形容動詞), which are used by most monolingual dictionaries. If you're\nusing a dictionary that marks them another way, it should say so somewhere--\nfor example, EDICT uses the abbreviations \"adj-na\" and \"n\".\n\n[The entry for 幸せ in\n大辞林【だいじりん】](http://www.weblio.jp/content/%E5%B9%B8%E3%81%9B) says:\n\n> （名・形動）\n\nThat means 幸せ can also be a 名詞.\n\nYou can also look at actual usage, for example by searching a corpus such as\nthe [Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese\n(BCCWJ)](http://www.kotonoha.gr.jp/shonagon/). When I search for 幸せ, I find\n5384 results, some of which appear to be using it as a noun. You can use this\ntool yourself to try to answer this question, if you're still uncertain after\nconsulting a dictionary.", "comment_count": 6, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-17T22:16:46.463", "id": "13453", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-17T22:39:09.123", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-17T22:39:09.123", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13452", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "I do not know for sure but suppose that it is highly related to the original\nword that was used.\n\nIn case of デバッグ this easily may be **debugging** , not the **debug**. And then\nformal transliteration was contracted even shorter. We know many examples like\ncolloquial バイト which is a contraction of アルバイト.\n\nOf course this is only a theory and more detailed answer is highly\nappreciated.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-19T03:58:49.447", "id": "13456", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-19T03:58:49.447", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "3544", "parent_id": "13455", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 }, { "body": "I'm fairly certain that this has to do with pitch in Japanese and accentuation\nin English.\n\nThe natural pitch for デバグ【HLL】 is HLL, whereas デバッグ【LHLL】 would naturally be\nLHL (and バグ【HL】 is HL). To mimic accentuation by pitch (i.e. accented\nsyllables get a high pitch after transliteration), the ッ is necessary to give\nthe バ a (natural) high pitch. バグ already has the right pitch pattern and the\nbest pronunciation approximation to \"bug\".\n\n(Besides, バッグ is already a word, although here the ッ is probably used to\nimitate the /æ/ sound, like in キャ **ッ** シュ \"cash\".)\n\nSo both バグ and デバッグ are to be the expected transliterations, and either pair\nバッグ/デバッグ and バグ/デバグ has shortcomings, albeit being more consistent in some\nsense.\n\n**Update 2022**. Darius Jahandarie points out that nowadays _katakana_\nloanwords (especially computer/tech-related terms) are increasingly often\npronounced with the _heiban_ (平板) pitch accent (see [Wikipedia on Japanese\npitch accent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_pitch_accent) for a brief\ndescription), so that the pitch accents for the two words in question would be\nバグ【LH】 and デバッグ【LHHH】.", "comment_count": 5, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-19T08:45:13.037", "id": "13457", "last_activity_date": "2022-03-19T08:07:03.443", "last_edit_date": "2022-03-19T08:07:03.443", "last_editor_user_id": "1628", "owner_user_id": "1628", "parent_id": "13455", "post_type": "answer", "score": 17 } ]

[ { "body": "I think the commenters are all right. There is a [principle of communication\ncontaining four maxims](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_principle)\nthat claims speakers and listeners are interested in four things:\ntruthfulness, quantity, relevance, and clarity. Hence, the shortest (quantity)\nform that correctly expresses the necessary degree of respect (relevance)\nwhile not obscuring the meaning of the sentence (clarity) is typically the\nmost pleasing one.\n\nIn descending order by those criteria, then:\n\n 1. お住まいはどちらですか?\n 2. どちらに住んでおられます? (arguably more intimate with passive)\n 3. どちらにすんでいらっしゃいます？\n\nDon't worry about getting too complicated; consistent competency will satisfy\nthose maxims more fully and will look and sound much better than suddenly good\ndiscursive performance, followed by a string of faux pas :)", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-12-12T04:27:13.457", "id": "13686", "last_activity_date": "2013-12-12T04:27:13.457", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "3131", "parent_id": "13459", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 }, { "body": "> Uses of ～ていらっしゃる, お＋verb-stem＋になる, ～ておる and お＋verb stem＋にする.\n\n〜ていっらしゃる and お＋verb-stem＋になる are used to show respect towards another person.\n\nBefore we can get into the use of ~ていっらしゃる、we must know the special honorific\nverbs first.\n\n## Special Honorific Verbs and Their Conjugations\n\n 1. いる、行く、来る change to いっらしゃる (the honorific verb) or いっらしゃいます (its irregular conjugation)。\n 2. 見る changes to ご覧になる。\n 3. 言う changes to おっしゃる (the honorific verb) or おっしゃいます (its irregular conjugation)。\n 4. する changes to なさる (the honorific verb) or なさいます (its irregular conjugation)。\n 5. 食べる and 飲む change to 召し上がる。\n 6. くれる changes to くださる (the honorific verb) or くださいます (its irregular conjugation)。\n 7. 寝る changes to お休みになる。\n 8. And finally, ~ている changes to ~ていっらしゃる (the honorific verb) or ~ていっらしゃいます (its irregular conjugation)。\n\n> ～ていらっしゃる\n\nWhen you lack a special honorific verb (as all shown above), we use\n~ていっらしゃる、if the original action was using ~ている.\n\nExample: 先生はテープを聞いていっらしゃいます。The teacher is listening to the tapes.\n\nIn most other cases, we use:\n\n> お + verb stem + に + なる\n\n先生は **お見えになります** か。 Have you seen the teacher?\n\nThe original sentence did not use ~ている, so we do not use ~ていっらしゃる。\n\n**Now we head into Extra Modest Expressions.**\n\n> ~ておる\n\n〜ておる is the extra-modest form of 〜ている、and is to be used **on one's own\nactions**. It is almost always used in the long form, 〜ております、because the\npurpose of it is to be polite towards the person you are talking to.\n\n[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/LMCOQ.png)\n\nThe same rule applies from ~ていっらしゃる、you use 〜ておる on your own actions that you\nwould normally use 〜ている on, and are also not any of the extra modest verbs.\n\n> Finally, お＋verb stem＋にする.\n\nAs said by Genki II Book: \"When you do something out of respect for somebody,\nyou can sometimes describe your action using a verb in the humble pattern\n\"お＋verb stem＋にする\". (Not all verbs are used this way, so you may only want to\nuse the ones you have actually heard being used.)\n\nExample: 私は昨日先生にお会いしました。I (humbly) met my professor yesterday.\n\nFor the particular sentence you're asking for above, it makes sense to follow\n@l'électeur comment.\n\n> お住まいはどちらですか/どちらでしょうか。\n>\n> Where do you live? (Which is the place you live?) (to teacher)", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2017-07-31T15:51:55.597", "id": "51896", "last_activity_date": "2017-07-31T15:51:55.597", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T08:18:27.500", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "16159", "parent_id": "13459", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Wild speculation here, but the Japanese polite conjugations seem especially\nunsuitable for singing. です and ます sound weird with a fully-voiced す taking a\nfull mora, yet Japanese poetry is very strict with moras - almost always, for\nexample, っ and ん do take a full note in songs.\n\nIn addition, they take up lots of space, which is really at a premium with\nJapanese songs, as the verse form (5/7/5...) was influenced by the **much**\nmore concise Classical Chinese language (albeit with a twist; CC poems usually\nare constant 5 or 7 lines); in fact when fantranslating anime songs into\nEnglish, one big problem seems to be how little semantic content the lyrics\nhave, due to the low information rate of Japanese (words are longer): I would\noften need to make up meanings, such as by translating 白い雲 as \"dazzling white\nclouds\" etc.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-21T04:20:44.220", "id": "13465", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-21T04:20:44.220", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "2960", "parent_id": "13460", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "Castle X is beautiful. Among all the castles in the world, castle X is the\ncoolest.\n\nX[城]{じょう}はキレイです。世界[中]{じゅう}の[城]{しろ}の[中]{なか}でX[城]{じょう}が一番カッコイイです。\n\nIn Japanese, if the word is very common and the kanji is too complex to write\nthey write it using katakana, just as I did with キレイ and カッコイイ. This helps\nkids and teenagers who usually know the word because they hear and use it all\nthe time, but are not very familiar with kanji.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-12-06T01:35:16.160", "id": "13608", "last_activity_date": "2014-01-10T05:20:17.980", "last_edit_date": "2014-01-10T05:20:17.980", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "3452", "parent_id": "13461", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "This `でも` means \"〜 or something similar\". So `メシでも食べて` means \"eat some rice or\nsomething\". The `ででも` in question is just the action-location-marker `で` plus\nthe previous `でも`. So `舞台袖ででも大人しくして` means \"wait/behave quietly in the 舞台袖 (or\nsomewhere)\".\n\n(Not sure of the best translation for `舞台袖` -- literally the \"wings of the\nstage\", but maybe something like \"off-stage\" or \"off to the side of the stage\"\nmight be better).\n\nBonus: Yes, your intuition is correct. `〜ない` often becomes `〜ねぇ` in very\ncasual speech.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-20T17:08:56.910", "id": "13464", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-20T17:08:56.910", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "78", "parent_id": "13463", "post_type": "answer", "score": 13 } ]

[ { "body": "You can write だか in an embedded clause (usually containing a question word\nsuch as どの or だれ) which is a complement of a verb such as 分かる. In a main\nclause, you must omit だ before か.\n\nSo I think you **can** say:\n\n> どの人が李先生だか知っていますか？", "comment_count": 12, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-21T08:39:00.950", "id": "13468", "last_activity_date": "2021-01-28T21:12:03.627", "last_edit_date": "2021-01-28T21:12:03.627", "last_editor_user_id": "30454", "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13467", "post_type": "answer", "score": 9 }, { "body": "だか is used with question words all the time by us native speakers. However,\nyou need to know that it is used almost exclusively in informal speech as the\nmore formal forms are であるか and であるのか.\n\nExamples: (Note that I will make the sentences informal on purpose so that だか\nfits in naturally.)\n\n「何が何だかさっぱりわかんねえ。」= \"Dunno what the heck's going on.\"\n\n「これ、どこのワインだかわかる？」= \"Can you tell where this wine comes from?\"\n\n「なぜだか教えてくれ！」= \"Do tell me why!\"", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-21T10:33:02.060", "id": "13469", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-21T10:33:02.060", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13467", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "It sounds like you are learning and still in the relatively early stages in\nwhich case your text book is introducing you to new grammar step by step.\n\nIf you look a few chapters ahead you will probably be introduced to more\ncomplex sentences such as:\n\n> いくつあるか知りません | I don't know how many there are.\n>\n> いくらだか知りません | I don't know how much it is.\n>\n> だれだったか忘れました。| I forgot who it was.\n\nThese came up in chapter 26 of one my first text books (p338 of an\nIntroduction to Modern Japanese, which is quite old).\n\nAs you can see from the other answers, these are first steps to more complex\nuses.\n\nI would suggest you take it step by step (but at a pace you feel comfortable\nwith!). As you come across new more complex but useful phrases that you can\nremember, learn them as set-phrases. You probably know a few already\n(どういたしまして？）. When you get to study the grammar in your studies, it will be a\nbit easier because you will have passively built up a feel for it. It is quite\neasy to study lots of new grammatical rules and feel you understand them but\nharder to adopt them all at once (or at least that was my experience).", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-21T12:45:43.203", "id": "13471", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-28T13:21:29.817", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-28T13:21:29.817", "last_editor_user_id": "1556", "owner_user_id": "1556", "parent_id": "13467", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "You can use だ and か together. I think だか is short for であるか. For native\nspeakers, であるか sounds like a formal speech. So we often use だか.\n\nFor example, of course you can say\n\n> どの人が李先生か知っていますか。\n\nbut you can also say\n\n> どの人が李先生だか知っていますか。\n\nso your textbook is wrong, and\n\n> どの人が李先生であるか知っていますか。\n\nis also Okay, but this is a little bit formal. (maybe young people don't say\nso.)\n\nAnother example, you can say both of\n\n> この人だれか分かりますか？\n>\n> この人だれだか分かりますか？\n\nThere's no difference between them. However\n\n> この人だれであるか分かりますか？\n\nis strange. Because in the latter part, it uses であるか so this sentence should\nbe formal, but in the former, は or が is omitted. So\n\n> この人がだれであるか分かりますか？\n>\n> この人はだれであるか分かりますか？\n\nis Okay, but I don't usually say so to my friends.\n\nNow, turn back to the main topic. As far as I have mentioned, it seems there\nis no difference between だ and だか, but unfortunately **it is not true**.\nActually, you can say\n\n> これは本か。\n\nbut you cannot say\n\n> これは本だか。\n\nThis is difficult to explain, but probably because many people feel a sentence\ndoesn't end by だか. Actually, if I heard the latter, I would think \"What is\nHondaka?\". To sum up, these are basically the same but don't end a sentence\nwith だか.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-21T21:00:07.357", "id": "13473", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-21T21:00:07.357", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T08:18:27.500", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "4212", "parent_id": "13467", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 } ]

[ { "body": "I don't think なん is particularly formal. It's short for なの. If I understand\nthe traditional grammar right, な here is analyzed as 断定の助動詞「だ」の連体形「な」, a form\nwhich appears chiefly before the 形式名詞「の」 in constructions such as\n「〜なのだ」「〜なので」「〜なのに」「〜なのか」 and so on.\n\nI think it's like this:\n\n```\n\n 　どこ **だ**　＋　のだ　＝　どこ **な** のだ\n \n```\n\nSo the difference in meaning is the same you get from adding 〜のだ to a\nsentence.\n\n* * *\n\nIf you take the above and change だ to です and add か, then you've almost got\nyour original example. You just need to change の to ん:\n\n```\n\n 　どこな **の** ですか　→　どこな **ん** ですか\n \n```\n\nI think that this の can change to ん before forms of the copula and before the\nquestion particle か, but like most reduced forms it's less formal than the\nfull version. It can even be reduced to ん at the end of a sentence in certain\ndialects, but you should be aware that this is not considered standard\nJapanese.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-21T17:07:58.673", "id": "13472", "last_activity_date": "2014-08-25T10:10:10.847", "last_edit_date": "2014-08-25T10:10:10.847", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13470", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "な functions like ね. What is particularly feminine about そうね is primarily the\nomission of だ, not the use of ね, so just changing ね to な in そうね doesn't make\nit masculine. You'd need だ to make it sound more masculine.\n\nI'm not sure I understand why you think that そうですな is ungrammatical, so all I\ncan say is that そうですな _is_ in fact grammatical (and not odd either). そうですな is\noften used and is masculine speech, but carries the nuance of being masculine\nspeech for males over 40, say.\n\nThere is a separate question about ですな: [What nuance does \"ですな\"\nbring?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/6806/what-nuance-\nbrings-%E3%81%A7%E3%81%99%E3%81%AA).\n\n_Edit._ I think one should also point out that ね is not a gendered particle\nand is used by females and males alike. In a formal context, a male speaker\nwould most likely say そうですね, so it seems you are assuming a false dichotomy: ね\nis not necessarily feminine (and な is not even decidedly masculine). In\ninformal speech, males may choose to use な instead of ね. So I can't see how it\nis \"right\" to say that そうだね is the feminine version of そうだな. Depending on tone\n& context, a female speaker may use そうだね or そうね or そうなのよね (or indeed something\nelse) to the same effect a male speaker would use そうだな. そうですな isn't just male\nspeech either, so it's hard to say that its \"feminine\" variant should be\nそうですね, because そうですね isn't necessarily feminine.", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-21T22:44:16.313", "id": "13475", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-22T10:21:45.427", "last_edit_date": "2017-04-13T12:43:43.857", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "1628", "parent_id": "13474", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "I think there are no much differences between そうだね, そうだな, そうですね and そうね.\n\nTo tell the careful thing, そうですね is the polite form, and そうね sounds like (a\nlittle bit!) childish.\n\nI don't know no other versions except for dialects.\n\nBy the way, そうですな is not wrong, but it sounds **funny**.\n\nBecause if you say so, I feel like you are an elderly gentleman.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-21T23:15:29.250", "id": "13476", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-21T23:15:29.250", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4212", "parent_id": "13474", "post_type": "answer", "score": 9 } ]

[ { "body": "Ichidan verbs add られる but young people add れる instead, perhaps to disambiguate\nbetween it and the passive, which also ends in られる (one of the only\nconjugation collisions of Japanese!). So standard Japanese: 食べられる, some\ncolloquial speakers say 食べれる (食べられる meaning \"to be eaten\" is never\ncontracted). This can be thought of adding られ or れ to the stem; don't think of\nthe る as it is simply the present tense ending. The native speaker you are\ntalking to may be confusing 五段 with 一段, which after all is easy to forget as\n_native_ speakers don't really need to keep grammar terms in order to speak!\n\nThis has nothing to do with godan verbs, which really form the potential in\ntypical Japanese recursive fashion, shifting the vowel and then using it as an\nichidan verb (会う aw- => 会える a(w)e-). So 書く always becomes 書ける, 読む 読める, etc.", "comment_count": 7, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-22T04:26:55.520", "id": "13479", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-22T04:32:10.827", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-22T04:32:10.827", "last_editor_user_id": "2960", "owner_user_id": "2960", "parent_id": "13478", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "You guessed correctly. However, we say さよならだ much more often than さようならだ. The\nlatter sounds pretty dull. (Vowel lengths are of utmost importance to us.)\n\nWith だ, the speaker is declaring a parting. The speaker would be male almost\n100% of the time.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-22T10:20:52.990", "id": "13481", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-22T10:20:52.990", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13480", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "1 I think it's [[絵馬]{えま}](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ema_\\(Shinto\\)).\n\n\n\n2 Maybe [献灯台]{けんとうだい}?\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-22T16:04:50.097", "id": "13483", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-22T16:47:40.590", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-22T16:47:40.590", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13482", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "I think there is no difference between them. Actually, I couldn't come up with\nit.\n\nBut, strictly speaking, it seems that there's **a little** difference.\n\nI googled it and found its explanation.\n[Here](http://okwave.jp/qa/q908110.html)(Japanese)\n\nIn the above page, a japanese asked its difference. haha\n\nTo sum up its best answer, using 「柔らかい」 or 「やわらかい」 is better. In some cases,\n「軟らかい」might be inappropriate, but its reason is very difficult to explain.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-22T20:00:35.840", "id": "13485", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-22T20:00:35.840", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4212", "parent_id": "13484", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "It is extremely common to end wish-making phrases with ように. In fact, I (a\nnative speaker) do not know of another way of making a wish.\n\nEveryone regardless of age or gender uses this ending. We often add どうか for\nemphasis at the beginning of the phrase as well.\n\n「（どうか）ドラゴンズが勝ちますように！」\n\n「（どうか）花子さんと結婚できますように！」", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-22T20:21:07.413", "id": "13487", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-22T20:38:26.467", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-22T20:38:26.467", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13486", "post_type": "answer", "score": 14 } ]

[ { "body": "1. According to [this page](http://gogen-allguide.com/tu/tsumaranai.html) つまらない comes from the verb つまる(詰まる) + negative ない. \nつまる originally means 動けなくなる(be stuck), 行動や思考が行き詰まる(come to a dead end) and\nstarted to mean 納得する(be convinced), 決着する(settle) as well. Over the years つまらない\ncame to mean 納得できない (not convincing/satisfying?) and has changed its meaning\nto boring, uninteresting.\n\n 2. How about... くだらない、はしたない、たまらない、あっけない、さりげない、やりきれない、ふがいない、みっともない、もったいない... for more, see [73p](http://ir.library.osaka-u.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/11094/4002/1/KJ00004305171.pdf)\n 3. I would say\n\n> 「つまらない」は「詰まる」から来ているんですか？\n>", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-23T06:41:14.953", "id": "13491", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-23T06:58:28.950", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-23T06:58:28.950", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13488", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "The important difference is the fact that using が is correct by anyone's\nstandards and using を is only correct by certain people's standards. We may\nhave been using the latter for decades now (and I admit that many native\nspeakers do) but how significant is that against the whole history of our\nlanguage?\n\nPoint is there are people who use only が with 好き and those who use both が and\nを, but I do not think there are people who only use を. It is as though we knew\nintrinsically which one was \"more\" correct originally.\n\nMy own stance is that any grammar discussion on this matter is doomed to\nfailure as anyone can instantly collect millions of examples for either camp\nonline, so I will talk about the difference between the two.\n\nAs OP mentioned, using が would tend to express a stronger liking than using を.\nIf you used が in telling someone that you like him/her, you would be likely to\nsound more serious. If you used を, you COULD possibly end up sounding a little\nbit capricious if not necessarily flirtatious. Needless to say, though, the\nother person would not make a hasty decision based solely on a single particle\nchoice by you. Everything else you say will count just as much or even more.", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-23T12:48:35.610", "id": "13492", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-23T12:48:35.610", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13490", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 }, { "body": "Found this on a search:\n<https://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1345796783>\n\n## In a nutshell\n\nAccording to that answer, using を where が is generally considered \"correct\"\nJapanese (as in the cases of 好き, 嫌い, 欲しい, できる, 食べたい, etc.), is \"New Tokyo\ndialect\". As far as を好き and が好き are concerned, it's said that there's no\ndifference in meaning.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2018-05-23T18:41:05.297", "id": "58921", "last_activity_date": "2018-05-23T18:41:05.297", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "29590", "parent_id": "13490", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "I'm not a total expert on this and as a non-native I urge you not to take this\nas a final authority, but here's what my research is showing me:\n\nAs a broad category of these kinds of beliefs, we have\n[俗信{ぞくしん}](http://kotobank.jp/word/%E4%BF%97%E4%BF%A1), or old beliefs,\nlegends and traditions stemming from customs and religions of yore that have\nmaintained some sort of presence in modern times. Note that this just refers\nto old beliefs and customs; it does _not_ make a claim about whether or not\nthey are true or illogical. This includes things like omens, fortune telling,\ntaboos, things related to various forms of sorcery, fairies, spirits, and what\nhave you, as listed in the dictionary. A lot of these may be clearly false,\nbut the word itself refers to the fact that they are from older societies (as\nin a part of 民俗). This _could_ refer to the English idea of superstitions, but\nit might be more appropriate as folklore or something like that.\n\n[迷信【めいしん】](http://kotobank.jp/word/%E8%BF%B7%E4%BF%A1), however, does make\nclaims: it refers to those 俗信 that are patently false. This is what we refer\nto as superstition. It has no basis in fact and runs contrary to actual\nevidence. [Wikipedia](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%BF%B7%E4%BF%A1) lists\nthis as the English superstition as well.\n\nThen these both fall under the [言い伝え]{いいつたえ} or 伝説{でんせつ} label, which are\ngeneral legends passed down from generation to generation.\n\nNote that 迷信 doesn't carry any supernatural or other connotations like that\nexplicitly or exclusively, but it can. It can be any old belief that doesn't\nfollow logic or evidence.\n\nAnd here's a [big list of them](http://www1.r4.rosenet.jp/gate/meitop.htm)\njust for kicks.\n\nCommon misconceptions like duck echoes and whatnot might or might not be\nrooted in old folk beliefs. That much I don't know, but it's possible that\nthey might be referred to as 迷信. A native's perspective there would be\nappreciated. It's probable that this kind of thing would be referred to as 誤解\nthough, or misunderstanding. [alc supports\nthis](http://eow.alc.co.jp/search?q=common%20misconception). It seems you\nmight be using \"superstition\" in English to refer to all kinds of myths. After\nall, I wouldn't refer to believing that a duck's echo doesn't quack as being\nsuperstitious.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-23T16:01:53.163", "id": "13496", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-24T08:41:07.577", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-24T08:41:07.577", "last_editor_user_id": "1797", "owner_user_id": "1797", "parent_id": "13493", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 }, { "body": "I'm not a native speaker either, but my intuition on 迷信 is that of\n\"superstition\" specifically rooted in some historical belief of the\n(super)natural. But acquiring more figurative meanings over time is a very\ncommon linguistic phenomenon, and as snailboat's link confirms, modern\nmistakes can also be called 迷信 by native speakers.\n\nOTOH, I've seen 誤った俗説 as a translation for \"common misconception\",\nspecifically in the context of recent history (ie, overturning a belief that\ndeveloped over the past century). And I think your myth example of a duck's\nquack having no echo would fit that category as well. I can't cite exactly\nwhere I saw it, but I can narrow it down to one of two books that I've read\nrecently:\n\n 1. 南京事件の日本人 / 笠原十九司; or\n 2. 言語学の諸相 : 赤塚紀子教授記念論文集 / 久野暲, 牧野成一, Susan G. Strauss編", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-25T13:32:01.170", "id": "13511", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-25T13:32:01.170", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4229", "parent_id": "13493", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "Let's start with this part of the sentence:\n\n> 彼女がどういう女だ\n\nWe'd like to add のだ, which includes the nominalizer の. When we do this, だ\nchanges to な, as you suggest:\n\n> 〜 **だ** ＋のだ ＝ 〜 **な** のだ\n\nHere's what our sentence looks like so far:\n\n> 彼女がどういう女 **なのだ**\n\nSince this has a question word, it's a question clause even without か. But we\ncan add か anyway, and in this case it's required because of the following\nverb:\n\n> 彼女がどういう女なの **だか** ・・・\n\nIf this were a complete sentence, we'd want to delete だ before か:\n\n> 彼女がどういう女なの **か** ← **か** , not **だか**\n\nBut since the question clause is used as a complement for the following verb,\ndeleting だ is optional:\n\n> 考えれば考える程 [ 彼女がどういう女 **なのだか** ] 分からなくなってきます。 \n> 考えれば考える程 [ 彼女がどういう女 **なのか** ] 分からなくなってきます。\n\nThe last one is your sentence, so hopefully you can see how it's put together\nnow.", "comment_count": 9, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-23T19:27:16.803", "id": "13497", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-23T19:58:18.537", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-23T19:58:18.537", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13494", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "from here: <http://hyakumonogatari.com/2013/11/15/whats-the-difference-\nbetween-yurei-and-yokai/>\n\n> [the Chinese loan-word] Yokai described an unseen world of mysterious,\n> supernatural phenomena. The term represented something invisible, without\n> form or identity; a mysterious energy that pervaded the deep forests,\n> oceans, and mountains.\n>\n> In truth, the word “yokai” was barely used at all. Ancient Japan had a more\n> common name for this invisible, mysterious energy—mononoke. The idea of\n> mononoke was something to fear—a mysterious, natural force that could come\n> out any time and kill you, like a lightning strike or a tidal wave. It took\n> the artists of the Heian period to give form to this mysterious energy, and\n> transform the mononoke into bakemono, changing things. And then it took the\n> writers of the Edo period to take these shapes and give them stories.\n\nJapanese mythical creatures doesn't really fit the same categories as ones in\nWestern mythology, so the appropriate English translation would vary from case\nto case. But monster, spirit or spectre would all be possibilities.\n\nAs to the modern meaning of the word; just going from what I've read in manga\nit's a much more uncommonly used term than oni, bakemono, youkai or a dozen\ndifferent words for monsters of various stripes. As such, I would have expect\nthat it has retained more of its original meaning than the newer terms, but\nyou'd need a native speaker - and probably a folklore buff at that - to really\nanswer your question.", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-24T19:46:36.050", "id": "13501", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-24T21:09:11.330", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-24T21:09:11.330", "last_editor_user_id": "4164", "owner_user_id": "4164", "parent_id": "13498", "post_type": "answer", "score": 14 } ]

[ { "body": "Just pronounce あ and then う. Google Translate does that. If you think that the\npronunciation is different, then probably your pronunciations of あ and う are\nincorrect. None of these two sounds have exact equivalents in English, and う\nin particular is very difficult to get correct.\n\nMore precisely, the う is \"mumbled\" because it is unstressed and pronounced\nwith low tone (あう has pitch /aꜜu/, and because the Japanese う really does\nsound like mumbling (むむむ often meaning mumbling). あ is also more to the front\nof your mouth than fAther but not as much as bAd. Think of the sound you make\nwhen you are screaming. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-24T18:43:23.577", "id": "13500", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-24T18:43:23.577", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "2960", "parent_id": "13499", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "Depending on the context, あ and う could either be pronounced as one vowel\nafter another with a clear but subtle space between them or as a diphthong.\nEnglish has tons of diphthongs too. Take \"night\" for example. The \"i\" in night\nis NOT one sound. Phonetically, it's N-AI-T, right? The \"i\" is A + I in quick\nsuccession. The English word \"cow\" has a very similar diphthong to あう. The\n\"ow\" in cow, isn't pronounced like \"oh\" how it looks, it's pronounced like AU,\nAh + Ooh, Ahooh, or AU. [tatakau is pretty much ta.ta.cow] Starting with \"ow\"\nfrom \"cow\" is great, because it approximates あう, but you want the EXACT\npronunciation right?\n\nWell, turns out the English language really has neither あ or う in it! The\nJapanese あ \"a\" sound is very short. It's precise phonetic location is between\nthe \"ah\" sound in Canadian/General American \"pot\" and the \"a\" sound in central\nCanadian \"cat\", NOT American \"cat\". American \"a\" from \"cat\" is usually a\nslight diphthong, so don't even compare あ to the American cat sound. If you\nknow Spanish or French, the short \"a\" from those languages is nearly identical\nwith Japanese \"a\". Let's try it! Hold the \"a\" from \"mat\" in a Canadian or\nCalifornian accent, now drop your jaw ever so slightly, you should be bang on\nthe Japanese \"a\". Now you can say \"Matte\"!\n\nNow for う! Dun, dun, dun! Whenever I hear native English speakers trying to\npronounce this I usually cringe, but it's definitely possible to master it. I\nhave. There is nothing close to the Japanese \"u\" in English, not even similar,\nphonetically speaking, so this'll be a learning curve if you're a beginner.\n\nAmericans tend to, again, diphthongize their vowels. \"Ooh\" is no exception.\nWhereas Canadians do so less often. If you watch cartoons/dubbed anime, many\nvoice actors are Canadian, so shoot for cartoon character phonemes LOL. Say,\n\"boo!\" but don't make the \"ooh\" like \"iuww\", make it a pure \"oo\" sound like\nArnold Schwarzenegger would say. See how low and dark that vowel sound is?\nIt's in the right ball park, but much too dark and rounded right now.\n\nNow say \"ee\" and without changing the position of your tongue, round your lips\ninto an \"oo\" shape. The sound you're now making should be like the \"ue\" sound\nfrom German, like in \"Uebermensch\". I can't use the umlaut, so I'm using the\ndigraph \"ue\" instead, same diff though. Now, drop the tip of your tongue in\nyour mouth ever so slightly, the sound should be less \"squished\" sounding.\nNow, unround your lips, make your lips \"flat\". The sound you're now making\nshould be the Japanese \"u\" or thereabout. Make it \"cutely\" nasal, and it'll be\neven closer.\n\nThe sound should be more squashed than our \"oo\" sound in English, but cuter\nthan the \"ue\" of \"ueber\". The back of the throat should be constricted like\nour \"oo\" as in \"do\", but unrounded like our \"oo\" from \"foot\". In fact,\nthinking of it as somewhere between \"oo\" from shoe and \"oo\" from \"foot\" might\nhelp you. Just make it a bit nasal and squished with your tongue nearer the\npalate. You can listen to the right sound in any anime or on the wikipedia\narticle for Japanese phonetics. The IPA vowel chart doesn't have the exact one\nbecause it's unique, but a native Japanese girl recorded it for the Japanese\nphonetics article in the vowel section.\n\nHope this helped! Oh, and remember, make your diphthongs tight like in\nEnglish. In tatakau, instead of going ta.ta.ka.oo, go ta.ta.cow - like 1\nsyllable at the end there.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-12-06T08:35:23.990", "id": "13611", "last_activity_date": "2013-12-06T08:35:23.990", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4275", "parent_id": "13499", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "You have answered your own question!\n\nいまいち is only the new colloquial form of いまひとつ, which is why it is often\nwritten in katakana whereas いまひとつ is always written in hiragana or with kanji\nsuch as 今一つ or 今ひとつ.\n\nAdditionally, we sometimes say いまに, いまさん, etc. to express greater degrees of\n\"lacking\".", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-24T22:43:36.667", "id": "13506", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-24T22:43:36.667", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13503", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "こうぜ is just how いこうぜ gets pronounced in lively \"tough guy\" kind of speech. It\nis used in group activities such as sports where a team effort is essential.\n\nTe-form of a verb + （い）こうぜ！ = \"Let's all (verb), guys!\"", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-24T22:27:16.197", "id": "13505", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-24T22:27:16.197", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13504", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "Like you suspect, 一番下の息子 means youngest son. (一番上の子供 would be oldest child.)\nYou also seem to understand the rest of the sentence just fine.\n\n昼寝 is ひるね, as any dictionary look-up would confirm. Mixed 音読み and 訓読み readings\nare quite rare, so your first guess should be ひるね or ちゅうしん.", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-24T23:55:10.620", "id": "13508", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-24T23:55:10.620", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1628", "parent_id": "13507", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "This is a really interesting question! According to\n[wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_phonology#Sandhi), 連声 is the term\nfor Japanese sandhi (a blanket term for any phonological process that occurs\nacross morpheme boundaries). I note this, because the examples in the question\nall exhibit nasal gemination (doubling of an \"n\"-sound), which is a (more\ncommonly studied) subset of Japanese sandhi.\n\nTo address the second part first, I think current Japanese phonology would\nonly allow 南欧 to surface as /nãɴ.oː/. What happens is, the /a/ gets nasalized\ncuz of the /n/ and becomes /ã/, and then the adjacent /n/ gets pushed back to\na uvular /ɴ/ (the \"n\" that occurs near the back of the throat). Although /ɴ/\ncould theoretically geminate, modern Japanese does not allow /ɴ/ to begin a\nsyllable, and would subsequently block the replacement of a second /ɴ/ with\n/n/. So that's some phonological motivation behind why 南欧 would not be\npronounced as なんのう nowadays. (I lack the data to substantiate this intuition,\nbut I feel like certain speakers might geminate the nasal anyway, but it would\nremain unperceived by native speakers.)\n\nHaving said that, the wiki page for 連声 gives modern examples, including\n\n> ～であったら → ～ **だ** ったら \n> 私の家（うち） → わたし **ん** ち \n> これは参った → こ **りゃ** 参った\n\nBut these are all examples of vowel deletion (or vowel reduction), rather than\nthat of nasal gemination (still all sandhi though). On the other hand, we also\nhave segment insertion:\n\n> そういう事 → そう **ゆ** うこと\n\nWhere palatalization occurs to break up that long vowel cluster (/soːiu/ →\n/soːjiu/).\n\nFrom Wiki's article on [Japanese\nphonology](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_phonology#Vowels), another\ncommon strategy to break up long vowel clusters is to shift the pitch and\npauses, such as in 東欧を覆う(とうおうをおおう), which I suspect is a prominent feature of\na [scholarly paper I don't have access\nto](http://ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/110009593032/en).\n\nAll in all, I would say that sandhi is very much alive and well in modern\nJapanese phonology, although perhaps not in the restricted sense of nasal\ngemination.", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-26T06:10:41.880", "id": "13517", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-26T06:45:48.020", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-26T06:45:48.020", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4229", "parent_id": "13509", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "Onomatopoeia vary a lot between languages ([for\nexample](http://www.buzzfeed.com/robinedds/what-noises-do-animals-make-in-\nother-languages-here-is-an-im), nicely illustrated!), and what you think\nsounds like or unlike the real sound is much more cultural than absolute. If\nyou are referring to new, or at least, not-in-dictionary 擬音語｛ぎおんご} in manga\netc, and how to tell their meaning, I think they are often in practice just\nvariants on existing sound effects or words, and context combined with\nknowledge of similar words is normally enough to get a rough idea of the\nmeaning.\n\nThis paper: [オノマトペ(擬音語擬態語)について](http://ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/110006227190) has\nsome interesting information on how different sounds _sound_ to native\nspeakers of Japanese. For example, unvoiced vs. voiced sounds:\n\n> まず、清音、濁音に対して持たれる印象は全体的に共通しているようである。清音に\n> は軽快、清らか、小さいという印象が持たれ、濁音には鈍重、濁り、大きいという印象\n> があり、時には否定的なイメージを持たれる傾向にある。これはあえてここで述べなく\n> ても、日本語話者であれば、「カタカタ」と「ガタガタ」、「サラサラ」と「ザラザ\n> ラ」、「トントン」と「ドンドン」などその音、様子の程度で無意識に使いわけている だろう。\n\nBasically, unvoiced sounds are lighter, clearer and smaller; voiced sounds are\nheavier, duller and louder; so 「トントン」and「ドンドン」already would be unconsciously\ndifferentiated by native speakers (the former more of a knock or a tap; the\nlatter more of a pounding or banging for example that of a large drum).\n\nIt cites another source, オノマトペ(擬音語・擬態語)を考える by 丹野真智俊 (this appears to be a\nbook and I cannot access the full text of it), where research was done into\nhow different kana gave different impressions in 擬態語:\n\n> 丹野真智俊が行った研究(2005)によると、「し」は静かなイメージ、「ふ」軽い、「げ」汚い、「ぜ」苦しい、「ぷ」かわいいといった共通のイメージがある\n\nThese were common \"images\" of the kana: し = quiet, ふ = light, げ = dirty, ぜ =\npainful or difficult, ぷ = cutesy.\n\nThey conclude that this common understanding among native speakers allows\nauthors to be understood even when they invent new onomatopoeia or use\nexisting ones in unusual ways:\n\n>\n> その作者たちが新しく作り出したオノマトペや、一般的な使われ方と違った表現が使われることがある。これらもそれぞれの文字への共通のイメージがあるため、作者がイメージする音や様態に近いイメージを想像でき、しかも、新しい表現で既存の表現を使用した時以上に生き生きとした描写になるのであろう。", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-25T20:28:15.990", "id": "13514", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-25T20:28:15.990", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "571", "parent_id": "13510", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "なき can never be used to end a sentence. In Classical Japanese, なき is the 連体形\nof なし, which basically means it modifies nouns:\n\n> 海なきところ - a place without an ocean\n\nOn the other hand, なし is what you use at the end of a sentence:\n\n> そのところは海なし - that place doesn't have an ocean\n\nIn the Muromachi period, なき was indeed used at the end of sentences, but that\nwas Late Middle Japanese, not Early Middle Japanese, from which Classical\nJapanese was derived.\n\n(In general this applies to all adjectives. Use し (rather than modern い) at\nend of sentence, き when modifying. 古き日本語は古し XD)", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-26T04:57:04.487", "id": "13516", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-26T04:57:04.487", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "2960", "parent_id": "13515", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "The answer in terms of classical Japanese is probably what you're looking for,\nas the modern usage will be -based- on its proper classical usage, but\nbasically なき is 連体形 and なし is 終止形. In modern Japanese the distinction between\n連体形 and 終止形 has deteriorated, but if I were to stress a distinction, 連体形\nfunctions in modern Japanese (when it is -not- attaching to a noun) as if it\nhas an explanatory/declarative の/もの/こと at the end. In modern Japanese, that\n\"explanatory の particle\" you learn is just a marker to make clear the\npreceding verb is in its 連体形 form (though this の is not always necessary).\n\nThis is -partially- due to the remnants of the 係り結び bound-particles system,\nand is also similar to why sentences can end in both か and のか (though they\nboth have to be in the 連体形 technically), which started degrading even before\nwe really hit modern Japanese. One other way of putting it is that -because-\nthe ending is 連体形 and not 終止形 it implies that something that is supposed to\nfollow was omitted.\n\nお忘れなき on its own is basically: お忘れ（は）ないこと. I'd say it's closest to\n\"お忘れ（し・は）ないようにね\"\n\n迷いなし is simply a statement. 迷い(は)ない. Depending on context this could be \"I am\nnot lost/hesitating etc.\" basically to mean \"All's fine here.\"\n\nHope that helps.\n\n--\n\nSince we were talking about it in the comments I'll add another usage of なし.\n終止形 can be used for nominalization and なし is a common case that forms (adj-no)\n\"adjective-type noun\" when used for nominalization. In this case it acts like\nan na-adjective but uses の instead of な (because it is technically a noun, not\nan adjective).\n\nA very common example is the word: なけなし. \"なけなしのお金\" - a small amount (\"not no\")\nof money.\n\nOther examples given by snailboat include: 「ネクタイなしの軽装」「文句なしだ」「アスプリン・砂糖なしの錠剤」\n\nIf I were to say there were a difference between 文句なし and 文句なしだ... The former\nis simply \"there are no complaints\" and the latter is \"(in describing the\nsituation you have referred to/we are talking about) there are no complaints\".\nAn insignificant nuance by itself, but using the だ would be more appropriate\nwhen tying it in with a larger sentence structure. \"前のことについてなんですけど、それは文句なしだ。\"\n\n--\n\nThe difference between べき・べし works similarly, just with more irregularities,\nbecause べき itself is treated as a na-adj nowadays.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-27T00:25:22.657", "id": "13524", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-27T03:06:59.463", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-27T03:06:59.463", "last_editor_user_id": "433", "owner_user_id": "433", "parent_id": "13515", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "I will be honest. Both 立ったり座ったり働く and 話したり笑ったり食べる sound very wrong and strange\n(if the phrases actually end like that). I do not even understand what either\nof the two means --- specifically, I do not understand the relationship\nbetween the first two actions and the third action described in each phrase.\n\nIf the two phrases (I could not even call them sentences) were meant to be\nwhat Snailboat (or is it you?) said they were, then they are still incorrect\nand highly unnatural.\n\nTo summarize so far :\n\n立ったり座ったり働く makes no sense. It does not mean anything.\n\n立ったり座ったりして働く makes perfect sense. Your job requires sitting down and standing\nup (repeatedly).\n\n立ったり座ったり働いたりする makes little to no sense because it means \"(I) stand up, sit\ndown, work and things like that.\"\n\nMoving on, 「のんびりしたりうろついたり食べるのが好きです」 makes sense in informal speech. I do not\nlike to bring grammar into a discussion of colloquial speech but the sentence\nwould be much clearer if the 食べるのが part were replaced with 食べたりするのが. The\nsentence means \"I like doing things like chilling out, wandering about and\neating.\"\n\nFinally, 可愛かったり美しい makes little sense without a noun at the end. Even with a\nnoun, it still is sloppy colloquial speech. Many Japanese-learners seem to\nlike to use たり these days but not many of them seem to know that it makes what\nthey say sound very informal.\n\nダルかったりキツい日 is of course \"correct\" colloquially.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-26T11:09:08.690", "id": "13521", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-26T11:09:08.690", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13518", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 }, { "body": "First of all I would like to point out that apart from する, なさる and できる and\nother する-ish verbs are also game.\n\nSecond of all, it is important to note that ～たり～たり is a 終止形 construction and\nthus supposedly forms a bracket of a complete idea or sentence. 終止形 usually\ndoesn't interact with anything specifically outside of itself, but when it\ndoes it tends to act like a nominalization that can at times form compound\nnouns and at other times like a quotation bracket.\n\nMy classical dictionary actually mentions this nominalization as an argument\nfor why たり is paired with する. The very similar construction ～ぬ～ぬ is -not-, and\nthe logic behind this is that it is not volitional, so it conflicts with する,\nand ends up just attaching to a verb that describes its action: \"浮きぬ沈みぬ揺られければ\"\n\nThere are several examples in my dictionaries that have ～たり～たり and ～つ～つ (which\nたり is derived from) that are not directly connected with する, but instead they\nare succeeded by a noun phrase that is equivalent to their action:\n\n\"僧都（そうづ）乗っては下りつ、下りては乗っつ、あらまし事をぞし給ひける\" == 僧都は乗っては降りたり、降りては乗ったり、乗りたがっている事をしました。\n\n\"掃いたり抜（ぬご）うたり、塵拾い、手づから掃除せられけり\" == 掃いたり抜いだり、塵拾い、自分の手で掃除しました。\n\nHowever, the volitional nuance for つ/たり is completely lost in modern Japanese\nas ぬ is completely gone, so it's not worth going into any further.\n\nNow, moving on, your first two examples have serious problems.\n\n立ったり座ったり働く\n\nI searched \"立ったり座ったり働く\" and got \"立ったり、座ったり、働くときの姿勢...\" - This is perfectly\ncorrect. Looking at the former phrase, it is disjointed because there is\nnothing connected between 立ったり／座ったり／働く (it would be \"I stood, I sat, I work\"\nin an archaic sounding Japanese), but as you can see in the latter phrase,\nthis is exactly how it's supposed to be. In other words, the parts of the\nphrase interact like this: 立つこと、座ること、（などの）働くときの姿勢...\n\n話したり笑ったり食べる\n\nI searched \"話したり笑ったり食べる\" and got \"自信を持って話したり、笑ったり、食べる事が出来る\". - This is again\nperfectly valid, if not a little strange. It equates talking and laughing with\nthe act of eating, but I suppose in a way that makes sense. After all it's not\nlike anyone needs confidence to eat. (Extracting the たりｓ gives you\n自身を持って食べる事が出来る.) It is in regards to the act of eating.\n\n可愛かったり美しい\n\nFirst of all 可愛かったり、美しい人 is not really equivalent to 可愛かったり美しかったりする人. I would\nassume it is closer to: 可愛かったり、いや、取り敢えず美しい人. It's more nuance than anything\nelse, especially in this case, but without する, 可愛かったり is properly disjointed\nfrom 美しい. That is my academic argument, but the realistic one is that because\nsaying something like 可愛かったり美しかったりする人, or 可愛かったり綺麗だったりするもの is just too much of\na mouthful for some people. It probably just got なきゃ'd from it's original\nなければならない. Again, this is partially possible because without much of a stretch,\nit still makes sense grammatically but with a different but not quite as\nimportant nuance.\n\nダルかったりキツい日\n\nI again use my former argument: \"だるかったり、(取り敢えず)キツい日\" キツい irregardless of\nwhether the reason for that is it being だるい or not. - I did not find any\nexamples of this on Google though.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-26T14:12:17.280", "id": "13522", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-26T14:12:17.280", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "433", "parent_id": "13518", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "I found this sentence in a book. I believe the book was 生きている心臓（上）by 加賀乙彦.\n\n>\n> 横顔が妙に青白い。呼吸が浅く、早くなった。救急隊員が酸素吸入をしたり、口腔内異物の吸引をしたり、忙しく働いているそばで、蝶子は、有作が意外に重傷で、助からぬのではないかと不安になった。\n\nYou said \"These [~tari verbs] seem to be describing that final verb.\" I had\nthe same feeling when I read that sentence from my book. 酸素吸入をしたり、口腔内異物の吸引をしたり\nseems to be describing 忙しく働いている. Maybe you could also say that\n酸素吸入をしたり、口腔内異物の吸引をしたり are two examples of the actions that make up the\ncontents of 忙しく働いている.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2014-01-04T16:22:49.083", "id": "14048", "last_activity_date": "2019-02-12T19:32:30.107", "last_edit_date": "2019-02-12T19:32:30.107", "last_editor_user_id": "902", "owner_user_id": "902", "parent_id": "13518", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Both interpretations are entirely possible, depending on which part you decide\nwas omitted:\n\n 1. ### Aたり / Bたり(するなど) / C\n\nDoing C, such as doing A and such as doing B.\n\n(The `〜するなど` here can also be `〜するとか`, `〜するなんて`, or more broadly, `〜して`)\n\n 2. ### Aたり / Bたり / C(たりする)\n\nDoing things such as A, such as B, and such as C.\n\n**Possibility #1** may seem more “grammatically acceptable” to you, as you may\nalready be familiar with other instances of this kind of omission:\n\n * 立ったり 座ったり(して) 何してるの？\n * 眠いのかな。あくびしたり 黙ったり(して)。\n * 走ったり 飛んだり(して) 疲れるわ。\n * 仕事を探したり お金を借りたり(して) どうにか暮らすよ。\n * ふざけた顔をしたり(して) 面白い人だ。\n\n**Possibility #2** fares worse in terms of “grammatical acceptability”, but my\nnotion is that certain liberties are taken with lists. I believe in English\nyou are taught to prefix the final item of a list with “and/or”, but don’t you\nsee them omitted quite often? Sometimes the “and/or” is unnecessary because\nthe sentence ends there. And even when there's a clause after it, don't you\nusually grok where the list ends, or at least get the gist?\n\n * I do things like lie down, read, (or) chill out — simple things.\n * The moon was shining, shimmering, (and) splendid.\n * He could be running, walking, (or) listening to music, and he enjoyed every minute of it.\n * She asked, begged, (and) pleaded, but for what good?\n\nWhen you omit the final `〜たりする`, sentences can be much shorter while still\ngetting the overall point across. This omission is becoming quite common, even\nin newscasts, but technically it is incorrect and frowned upon by\nauthoritative institutions\n([source](https://www.nhk.or.jp/bunken/summary/kotoba/gimon/154.html)). Don’t\ndo it on a grammar test.\n\n * 踊ったり しゃべったり 本を読んだりすることが好き ← So correct and yet so wordy\n * 踊ったり しゃべったり 本を読んだりするのが好き\n * 踊ったり しゃべったり 本を読むのが好き ← Shorter\n\nMore examples of this type of omission:\n\n * 寝る前はTV見たり、歯磨いたり、日記を書く。\n * 夏休みは海に行ったり、山に行ったり、里に行った。\n * 部屋を片付けたり、シャワーを浴びたり、服を選んでたら遅れちゃった。\n * 熱が出てたり、頭が痛かったり、のどが腫れてるので風邪だと思う。", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2015-09-18T19:24:42.070", "id": "28100", "last_activity_date": "2015-09-18T20:35:05.560", "last_edit_date": "2015-09-18T20:35:05.560", "last_editor_user_id": "888", "owner_user_id": "888", "parent_id": "13518", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 }, { "body": "When a verb comes after (another verb) たり, you expect the verb should be\nfollowed by たり。\n\n> 立ったり座ったり働く\n\nsounds wrong because it doesn't match the expectation. You cannot tell whether\nして is missed (立ったり座ったりして働く) or たりis missed (立ったり座ったり働いたり). But\n\n> 立ったり座ったり忙しく働く\n\nmakes sense because 忙しく works like して. 立ったり座ったり explain how 忙しく. But, strictly\nspeaking, this is not grammatically correct.\n\nSimilarly\n\n> のんびりしたりうろついたり食べる\n\nsounds wrong but\n\n> のんびりしたりうろついたり食べるのが好きです\n\nis OK because, by adding のが好きです, you can easily figure out 食べる is part of たり\nphrases. Again, this is not grammatically correct.\n\nNote: because they are grammatically incorrect, their interpretations greatly\ndepend on the meanings of verbs in たり phrases. For example,\n\n> そば屋に行ったりラーメン屋に行ったり食べるのが好きです。\n\napparently means\n\n> そば屋に行ったりラーメン屋に行ったりして食べるのが好きです。", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2015-09-18T22:32:50.917", "id": "28109", "last_activity_date": "2015-09-18T22:32:50.917", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "10770", "parent_id": "13518", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "This できる means \" **to come into existence** \".\n\n「僕{ぼく}に彼女{かのじょ}ができたんだ」 therefore means \"I've got a girlfriend now.\" since it\nwould not be natural to say in English the literal translation version \"A\ngirlfriend has come into existence for me.\"\n\nNote that the subject of that Japanese sentence is 「彼女」 and not 「僕」. Please do\nnot be fooled by the translation: \"I've got a girlfriend now.\", in which the\nsubject is \"I\".\n\nMore examples:\n\n「今日新しい友だちができた。」\n\n「もうすぐここにラーメン屋ができるらしい。」= \"I hear there will be a ramen shop here soon.\"\n\n「OMG, こどもができちゃった！」= \"I/She got pregnant!\" I am sure some of you have heard the\nword 「できちゃった婚{こん}」 or 「できちゃった結婚{けっこん}」 (\" **shotgun marriage** \"). It comes\nfrom this 「できる」.", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-26T10:17:29.727", "id": "13520", "last_activity_date": "2021-10-26T01:16:52.897", "last_edit_date": "2021-10-26T01:16:52.897", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13519", "post_type": "answer", "score": 12 } ]

[ { "body": "Maybe you mean something like this:\n\n> バナナ → banana \n> ペン → pen\n\nThe pronunciation is never going to be exactly the same in both languages, but\nI bet these could be understood pronounced with Japanese or English\npronunciation.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-27T01:19:08.117", "id": "13525", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-27T01:19:08.117", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13523", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "As a dictionary would tell you, it's 通行人【つうこうにん】. As kanji represent the\nmeaning of a word, one way to understand kanji compounds is by changing each\ninto its own word. In this case, 通行人 becomes 通【とお】り行【い】く人【ひと】 -- a person who\ngoes by crossing.\n\nWhich is to say, a pedestrian.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-27T03:28:24.730", "id": "13529", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-27T03:58:25.627", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-27T03:58:25.627", "last_editor_user_id": "384", "owner_user_id": "384", "parent_id": "13528", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "通行人 means \"pedestrians\" and nothing else and it is read つうこうにん.\n\n交通 means \"traffic\" whereas 通行 mostly means \"passing\". In other words, 交通 is\nmore general and abstract, and 通行 is more specific and is used to describe the\nflow of the traffic in a limited area and/or for a limited time frame. Macro\nvs. micro, so to speak, though with some overlap.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-27T03:42:14.403", "id": "13530", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-27T03:42:14.403", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13528", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "Textbooks vs. People.\n\nCareful speakers would not say ではなかったら, that is for sure, but not all of us\nare careful speakers and some of us will say it anyway. Textbooks need to draw\nthe line somewhere and I feel yours made a good decision regarding this\ngrammar point.\n\nMore interestingly, the sentence you gave 「ここで質問することではなかったらすみません。」 is VERY\ntricky. It is actually good even with that は. It is good only because the たら-\nclause is followed by すみません instead of a whole mini-sentence describing an\neffect/result arising from the condition expressed in the たら-clause. For\ninstance, if a ほかの場所で質問します followed the たら-clause instead of a すみません, the は\nwould look unnecessary as far as school grammar was concerned.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-28T00:31:52.360", "id": "13541", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-29T12:44:01.493", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-29T12:44:01.493", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13532", "post_type": "answer", "score": 9 }, { "body": "There is NO such thing called \"は should be omitted and should be でなかったら NOT\nではなかったら\" otherwise じゃなかったら would also be ungrammatical but the fact is the\nother way around. It all depends on the context and your intention to decide\nwhether you use は or not. Grammatically は CAN be added after で in any context\nwhenever you want to make it a topic except when there is already a は in the\nsame stucture like \"でなければ\" in which は already shows up in the form of ば.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2023-08-05T12:30:42.673", "id": "100535", "last_activity_date": "2023-08-05T12:32:17.980", "last_edit_date": "2023-08-05T12:32:17.980", "last_editor_user_id": "57206", "owner_user_id": "57206", "parent_id": "13532", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "Yes, 次第に modifies 少なくなり in that sentence, nothing else.\n\nOne cannot say 次第に登校する in the first place anyway because \"going to school =\n登校する\" is not something one can do \"little by little = 次第に\". 次第に少なくなる, however,\nis a natural-sounding phrase because the number of something (students in this\ncase) CAN decrease little by little.\n\nYou are also correct in considering 登校する生徒の数 as one unit because it is one\nnoun phrase.", "comment_count": 5, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-27T10:45:14.187", "id": "13534", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-27T10:45:14.187", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13533", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "A quick search on [jisho.org](http://jisho.org) has shown me:\n\n> 火の玉 --> falling star; fireball\n\nThis definition suggest that it can mean either falling star or fireball.\nYou'll probably have to figure this out based on the context of the sentence.\n\nAnother good online Japanese to English dictionary to check out is\n[WWJDIC](http://www.edrdg.org/cgi-bin/wwwjdic/wwwjdic?1C).", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-27T13:02:59.243", "id": "13536", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-27T13:02:59.243", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "3741", "parent_id": "13535", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "Daijirin gives one of its meanings as a ball of light that looks like it's\nflying through the night sky. As such, I think the meaning \"fireball\" comes\nfirst, which then got attached to \"falling stars\" because of\nvisual/descriptive similarity. So, (unless a native speaker would like to\nprove me wrong ;) ) it doesn't necessarily _mean_ \"falling star\" but is often\nused to _refer_ to falling stars.\n\nBTW, if you want to refer to shooting stars explicitly, you can use\n[流れ星]{ながれぼし}.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-27T14:30:56.490", "id": "13537", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-27T14:30:56.490", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4164", "parent_id": "13535", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "I hope it is no sin to post an anwer without using a dictionary.\n\n火の玉, when it is used by us native speakers, refers to only one thing 90% of\nthe time --- the small light/fire that people claim to see flying around a\ngraveyard at night as a sign of the spirit of the dead.\n\nSometimes we use the word to refer to other things ---- a fireball, falling\nstar, bolide, you name it. 火の玉, as far as its literal meaning goes, only means\n\"ball of fire\", therefore, one could use it to refer to something that looks\nlike a ball of fire.", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-27T23:35:39.390", "id": "13540", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-27T23:35:39.390", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13535", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "I think the 2nd half means literally\n\n[how] I am spending everyday\n\n[how] ＝ busy studying , busy at leisure、", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-27T18:22:08.880", "id": "13539", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-27T18:22:08.880", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1556", "parent_id": "13538", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "I'll try to answer this so as to approach a common understanding, though I\nmyself have a hard time adequately understanding the sentence as well.\n\n忙しい毎日 seems to be a common enough expression.\n\nPerhaps one could equate it with the English, \"Busy everyday.\"\n\nHere is my probably flawed attempt at a translation:\n\n> 今は日本語もだんだんわかってきて、勉強にレジャーに忙しい毎日をおくっています。\n>\n> I'm gradually starting to get a hold on Japanese now, busying myself\n> everyday by studying at my leisure.\n\nAdjective plus time noun is a common pattern:\n\n> \"暑い毎日\" or even \"忙しい時間,” something perhaps more common.\n\nI don't grasp what the も signifies or how the にs in the second half are used,\nso perhaps someone else can explain that.\n\nPerhaps the meaning would become clearer if more context was provided as well.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-28T06:39:16.300", "id": "13543", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-28T06:45:56.967", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T08:18:27.500", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "706", "parent_id": "13538", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 }, { "body": "> 勉強にレジャーに忙しい毎日をおくっています。\n\ncould be rephrased to\n\n> 勉強したり、レジャーで遊んだりして、毎日忙しいです。\n\nMy English is not very good but let me try.\n\n> I'm living a busy life working and playing.\n\n\"playing\" here may not be a right word. Anyway the speaker is saying s/he is\nspending life full of activities.", "comment_count": 7, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-28T08:31:33.947", "id": "13544", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-28T08:31:33.947", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4226", "parent_id": "13538", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 }, { "body": "〜に忙しい is a set phrase meaning \"busy with X\".", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-28T10:24:18.493", "id": "13545", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-28T10:24:18.493", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4164", "parent_id": "13538", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "What difficult Japanese you are reading!\n\nI think your understanding is correct. 「体幹の見切りと筋肉の凝固弛緩その隙間。」is the point 彼 has\nbeen thinking to strike to defeat the enemy 人狼. 「体幹の見切りと筋肉の凝固弛緩その隙間。」is not a\nfull sentence, but a looong noun, more description of その点 introduced in the\nfirst sentence.\n\nPerhaps 彼 has not found the exact point to strike yet. 彼 has to syncronize his\nmind with that of the enemy, has to syncronize his breathing with the enemy to\ncompletely capture the right place and the right moment. Even has to watch how\nenemy's body moves, how its muscle tightens and untightens. There must be\nopening in his body. That's the only place he strikes. 彼 well recognizes how\nweak people are before 人狼, so 彼 has been thinking to find out the right place\nto hit, he's been thinking only about it from the beginning and nothing else.\nIf he misses, that means his immediate death.\n\nThis is my version of understanding when I read the paragraph, not verbatim\ntranslation (sorry!) Your translation of parts of 「体幹の見切りと筋肉の凝固弛緩その隙間。」is\ncorrect, you are not mistaken.\n\nHope this helps you understand the paragraph!", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-29T11:43:15.163", "id": "13555", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-29T11:43:15.163", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4226", "parent_id": "13547", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 }, { "body": "To repeat what I stated in the comment, 「体幹の見切りと筋肉の凝固弛緩その隙間」 is NOT a sentence\nby any standard. It is only a noun phrase in which everything else will\neventually end up modifying the last noun 隙間. I repeated it because so many\nmembers here call little phrases \"sentences\".\n\n隙間 is a key word here. If one thinks of a \"spatial gap\" just because a\ndictionary says so, one will be left in the dark with the whole phrase. The\nword is being used to refer to a \"temporal gap\" here. I shall return to this\npoint.\n\n体幹の見切り might be a difficult phrase to comprehend because 見切り is being used as\na technical martial art term here rather than for a usual dictionary meaning.\nIt means pulling back one's upper body to parry an attack.\n\n筋肉の凝固弛緩 means what OP stated without a twist.\n\nNow, in order to pull back one's upper body, 筋肉の凝固 naturally must occur,\nfollowed immediately by 筋肉の弛緩. That split second between the two sets of\nmuscle activities is what the author refers to as その隙間. He is saying that that\nis the ultimate moment for an effective attack because that is the only moment\nthat the opponent is defenseless.\n\nIf it helps the Japanese-learner, try inserting a 「それに伴う」 between\n「体幹の見切りと」and「筋肉の凝固弛緩」with それ referring to 体幹の見切り. It MIGHT become a little\neasier to understand the phrase.", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-12-02T00:58:16.337", "id": "13569", "last_activity_date": "2014-01-22T07:27:23.237", "last_edit_date": "2014-01-22T07:27:23.237", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13547", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "The changes you're talking about are actually pretty regular. There _are_ some\nirregular ones (一人【ひとり】、二人【ふたり】、三階【さんがい】), but what you're looking for is\npretty straight-forward.\n\n[Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_counter_word#Euphonic_changes)\nhas a pretty good summary of the sound changes.", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-29T14:00:26.310", "id": "13556", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-29T14:00:26.310", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "384", "parent_id": "13548", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "It's 兵 as in 兵士. Its radical is 八 (はち(がしら)） and apparently _not_ 斤 （おの(づくり)）\nor 厂 (がんだれ). 7 strokes.\n\n<http://ja.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%85%B5>", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-28T23:44:38.913", "id": "13550", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-28T23:52:11.117", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-28T23:52:11.117", "last_editor_user_id": "1797", "owner_user_id": "1797", "parent_id": "13549", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "Look a little closer at the link you posted. It explains this grammar\nstructure as meaning \"the situation _A_ remains unchanged.\" This can have the\nmeaning of \"while\" in English, but that's not necessarily a good way to think\nof it. In your example \"妹は制服を着たままで寝てしまいました。\" it is approximated in English as\n\"while\" because that's how we might say it in this case. But try to think of\nit in the \"remaining unchanged\" meaning. The younger sister fell asleep, and\nher uniform was left on. The suggestion is that she would have normally\nchanged into something else before falling asleep.\n\nThe point is you need to think of it as a continuation of an old state and\nespecially unchanged when you might expect a change. So when we apply this to\nthe sentence you're confused about, it might be a little clearer. On your\nbookshelf are many books that are _as they were when you bought them_ , as in\nstill new, unopened and unread. This is a little more abstract than something\nphysical like wearing a uniform to bed or wearing something while it's still\nwet or what have you, but it works.\n\nJust try your best to avoid linking words, phrases, and other constructions\ndirectly to English words/phrases and instead try to internalize the deeper\nmeaning.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-29T04:30:27.900", "id": "13552", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-29T05:40:01.193", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-29T05:40:01.193", "last_editor_user_id": "1797", "owner_user_id": "1797", "parent_id": "13551", "post_type": "answer", "score": 9 }, { "body": "The link you have given defines 〜たまま as \"remains unchanged\". Before examining\nyour examples lets take an ordinary example:\n\n> 弟はテレビをつけたまま寝てしまいました。\n\nA natural translation would be:\n\n> My younger brother fell asleep in front of the television.\n\nA more literal translation, employing the idea of \"remains unchanged\" would\nbe:\n\n> \"My younger brother fell asleep while the TV was still on.\"\n\nPlease note that while these two sentences are different in English, they\namount to the same thing. But, we had to employ a certain amount of \"literary\nlicense\" to get to what I think you would agree is the more natural English\nequivalent.\n\nIn both your examples your reference has given you the more natural\ntranslation. It sounds like you are looking for the \"in-between\" sentence that\ngets us from the Japanese to the natural English sentence using the\nexplanation on your link of \"remains unchanged\". I would suggest:\n\n> 私の本棚には 買ったまま 読んでいない まんが が たくさん あります\n>\n> There are many comics (ie manga) on my bookshelf that are unread, just as\n> they were when they were bought. (ie new, in mint condition...remain\n> unchanged from when they were first bought)\n\nIn the second sentence:\n\n> 妹は制服を着たままで寝てしまいました。\n>\n> My younger sister fell fast asleep [unchanged] still wearing her uniform.\n\nWe can conveniently use the expression \"remains unchanged\" here to convey the\nmessage that she did not **change** out of her day clothes (uniform) to her\nnight clothes but this would be to miss the point that translating Japanese\nrequires us to take the unwritten context into account. The situation that\nremained unchanged was that she did not take off her uniform. This type of\nexpression is often (but not always) used to convey that an action that would\nnormally be done before a second action did not take place.\n\nA more plain use for まま would be:\n\n窓は開けたままだった｜The window had been left open.\n\n話を聞いたまま話す｜tell a story just as one heard it", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-30T07:24:45.337", "id": "13561", "last_activity_date": "2013-12-01T14:47:47.493", "last_edit_date": "2013-12-01T14:47:47.493", "last_editor_user_id": "1556", "owner_user_id": "1556", "parent_id": "13551", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 }, { "body": "The 着る example might be confusing you, since 着る and \"wear\" do not match each\nother very well with respect to aspect. Aspect-wise 着る matches \"don\" better\n(着る is a change-of-state verb).\n\nSo an unidiomatic, but true-to-aspects translation of the 着る example might be:\n\n> My sister fell asleep with her clothes donned\n\nand likewise, your 買う example might be translated\n\n> ... many unread books that are like newly-bought\n\nThe \"while\" translation is misleading and only works in the 着る case because 着る\nis a change-of-state verb, while \"wear\" describes a state.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-30T14:14:41.537", "id": "13563", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-30T14:14:41.537", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1073", "parent_id": "13551", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "一組 is pronounced in two ways in Japanese for two different meanings.\n\nひとくみ: a pair of ~~, a set of ~~\n\nExamples: ひとくみのカップル、ひとくみのディナーウェアー\n\nいちくみ: Group #1 (among multiple groups)\n\nExample: Name of class in school (二年一組、六年一組, etc.)\n\n一組 is never officially read いちぐみ, いっくみ or いっぐみ in real life. However, you will\nonce in a while hear people say いっくみ to mean Group 1 in very informal\nconversations.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-29T09:51:37.057", "id": "13554", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-29T09:51:37.057", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13553", "post_type": "answer", "score": 9 } ]

[ { "body": "That's not a kanji. That's a vertical angle-bracket, i.e. `〈サベージ〉`. And yes,\nsometimes they can act as quotes, but as far as I know, there aren't any set-\nin-stone rules about their usage.", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-29T16:47:47.507", "id": "13558", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-30T01:56:10.370", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-30T01:56:10.370", "last_editor_user_id": "384", "owner_user_id": "384", "parent_id": "13557", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "How about... \n~~する(とき)みたいな(しゃべり)かたをする, ~~するような(口のきき)かたをする, or ~~する(とき)みたいに~~する?", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-29T23:06:44.287", "id": "13560", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-29T23:06:44.287", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13559", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "It's read as\n\n> Douse chishiki dake atama ni tsume konderu heiki (otaku) \n> どうせちしきだけあたまにつめこんでるへいき(おたく)\n\nHow can we end a sentence in a noun? \n-- I think it's because this is not a sentence but a relative noun clause.\n\nWhats the 「込んでる」? \n-- It's [詰]{つ}め[込]{こ}んで(い)る,\n[詰め込む](http://ejje.weblio.jp/content/%E8%A9%B0%E3%82%81%E8%BE%BC%E3%82%80) +\nいる.\n\ncf. [知識を詰め込む in\nWeblio](http://ejje.weblio.jp/content/%E7%9F%A5%E8%AD%98%E3%82%92%E8%A9%B0%E3%82%81%E8%BE%BC%E3%82%80)", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-30T14:57:32.217", "id": "13565", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-30T15:18:44.610", "last_edit_date": "2013-11-30T15:18:44.610", "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": null, "parent_id": "13564", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "To the best of my knowledge, 幸 is 'happiness' and 運 is 'luck' (good or bad).\nEnglish confuses the matter by using the words for 'luck' and 'fortune' with\nboth neutral and good meanings, but the kanji's meanings are quite separate\nfrom each other. 幸 has very little to do with luck, actually, and pretty much\njust means 'happiness' (c.f. 幸せ 'happy, happiness'). 運 more primarily means\n'movement' (c.f. 運動 'motion, movement, exercise', 運転する 'drive (a car)', etc),\nand the 'luck, fortune' meaning is secondary.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-30T21:08:19.980", "id": "13567", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-30T21:08:19.980", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "3639", "parent_id": "13566", "post_type": "answer", "score": 9 }, { "body": "幸い is related to happiness as if it was your destiny, 運 on the other hand is\nmore related to being blessed. A good metabolism would be 運がいい but entering\nmedical school would be 幸い.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2015-02-03T02:28:34.203", "id": "21600", "last_activity_date": "2015-02-03T02:28:34.203", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "9210", "parent_id": "13566", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "According to the Japanese wikipedia page, in 古事記{こじき}, it is recorded as 津島 -\nthis fits the reading and may indicate the original meaning of the name. The\nslightly later 日本書紀{にほんしょき} records「対馬洲」and「対馬島」.\n\nSo we probably have つしま as the original name, pre-dating kanji, a possible way\nof writing it in kanji, 津島, and another, 対馬 adopted from the Chinese/Korean.\nThe fact that 対馬 eventually won out is just an accident of history - it\nprobably suggests that 津島 was not an established way of writing the name.\n\nRegarding the origin of 対馬, 対 can also mean \"a couple/pair\".\n[This](http://www.tisen.jp/tisenwiki/?%C2%D0%C7%CF) interesting discussion of\nthe origins suggests it may have previously been 対島 - referring to the shape\n(even before it was split in two in 1671 it could have been taken as two\nhalves), or related to an old placename on the Korean peninsula - 馬韓 - making\nit \"the island facing 馬(韓)\".\n\nThere are, apparently, no horses on the island.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-12-02T16:03:39.417", "id": "13575", "last_activity_date": "2013-12-02T16:03:39.417", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "571", "parent_id": "13568", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "I think that the whole phrase \"いつでも どこでも だれとでも\" is being treated as a noun\nphrase, (or rather list) as if there was an invisible (ということ/そのこと/そういうこと)\nbefore the が.\n\nYou wouldn't normally see が after でも, and I don't think it's anything\nparticularly special - if someone said it they might have a dramatic pause or\nsomething after what they're using as a block phrase. I have a feeling I've\nexperienced some examples of similar omissions before, but there was a fairly\nclear break between the thing being treated as a phrase and the が.\n\nAt the very least, Google comes up with a few examples of:\n\n「いつでも、どこでも、だれでも」が - marking the phrase with 「」", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-12-02T04:47:09.743", "id": "13571", "last_activity_date": "2013-12-02T04:47:09.743", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "433", "parent_id": "13570", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 }, { "body": "Probably this is not 100% grammatically correct but as a Japanese I don't find\nanything wrong.\n\nLet's create another example. 「うまい、はやい、やすい、がうちのモットーです。」Adjective should not be\nused like this if you think about grammar, but we say this.\n\nIf you talk about only one characteristc, then we don't use a sentence like\nthis. I don't think we say 「だれとでも が ポケモン勝負の いいところ！」. If you want to\nspecifically discuss one thing, then 「だれとでも 遊べる の が ポケモン勝負の いいところ」would be\nappropriate.\n\nAn English expression I can think of is \"woulda coulda shoulda\" treated as\nnoun. Well, this might not be similar, but three similar expressions are\ntreated as a collection of nouns. Interesting.", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-12-02T05:02:47.050", "id": "13572", "last_activity_date": "2013-12-02T05:02:47.050", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "4226", "parent_id": "13570", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 }, { "body": "The expression does not follow our normal grammatical rules but if you have\nlearnt to live with:\n\n> 誰もがそうする。| Everybody does it.\n\nThe expression doesn't feel too unnatural (?), possibly reminiscent of the\nkind of Japanese that appears in the JLPT N1 to throw candidates off.\n\nI also came across the following in space-ALC, which suggests the grammar /\nuse is not unique:\n\n> 誰でもが見られるように～の一番目立つ場所に置いてある | enjoy a prominent place in ~ for all to see", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-12-02T11:13:49.783", "id": "13573", "last_activity_date": "2013-12-02T11:20:48.837", "last_edit_date": "2013-12-02T11:20:48.837", "last_editor_user_id": "1556", "owner_user_id": "1556", "parent_id": "13570", "post_type": "answer", "score": -1 } ]