Rhys wrote:

1. So I know this verb やってきました is something like ‘to come’, this one specifically in past tense being ‘came’, but wouldn’t that just be 来ました? What is this added やって? Here is the full sentence: 宇宙人が地球にやってきました。

やってくる = come along, turn up.

2. Similar to above, the verb is now やってきて. Here’s the sentence part its in: 宇宙人は１０月２３日にやってきて、<br>
Apparently this is past tense, so shouldn’t it end with a た instead of a て? What rule am i missing here?

Tense is set by the main clause – which is to say, the verb at the end of the sentence. This here is in continuative form: “The aliens turned up on October 23rd, and…”

3. I’m struggling with pieces from this sentence: ここでは朝の５時半でしたが、宇宙では午後の３時半でした
I’m not familiar with a tense like でした simply hanging off the end of time like that.<br>

Remember, 時 is a noun, even when it’s performing the funtion of “o’clock”. This is noun+でした, and you know what that means. Or, you ought to. =P

And the が in the middle that splits the sentence, does that have a direct translation? I know it can be used as ‘but’.

Yeah, it’s “but”. If it’s at the end of the clause, it’s pretty much always “but”, unless someone’s being hinky with word-order.

Also, the では just after ここ and 宇宙 at the start of the sentences, it looks as if its two particles. I’m probably wrong about that though.

Nope, you’re absolutely correct. This is what we call double particles – does Koichi never cover that? Basically, では combines the effects of both で and は – which is to say, the topic (marked by は) is ここで.

4. I’m lost in translation at the end of the story. This part here:…そして宇宙人はどこかに行ってしまいました<br>
Correct translation from Kouichi: ‘…he went off somewhere.’<br>
Does どこか simply translate as ‘somewhere’?

Yep. Also, 何か = something, だれか = someone, et cetera. Then there’s どこも = nowhere, and so forth. Koichi has to have covered this, surely…

And I’ve never seen ‘しまい’ in between a verb conjugation like that at the end there.

しまいます = しまう in ます-form. V-てしまう = either “completely verbed” or “verbed, regrettably” depending on context. Can be both. In this case, it’s the latter.

5. 2nd last line of the story: ３秒間がたち. Translate as: There were three seconds.<br>
Is たち being used as a pluralizing suffix here? If that’s correct, before seeing this I wouldn’t have put in the ‘が’ thats just before it. What does that do in this case?

It’s 立ち, I think. Not completely sure here, to be honest. It’s certainly not the pluralising suffix, though, which is only used for pronouns and human nouns.

Rhys wrote:

So one of most consistent obstacles with learning Japanese seems to be the sometimes strange translations into English.

Strange how?

Aye. I read somewhere that English is the only language in which thesauruses are published – though I have to admit I have no idea whether that’s actually true.

Gotta love English.