The "I found some Japanese I don't understand" thread.

[PencilMember]

もう一度、ありがとう。^__^

Alright, so I’ve been watching Minami-Ke, and in episode seven, there’s a running gag involving the fact that the class president (she coordinates all the cleaning tasks and such) is constantly addressed as ‘a badass’. It’s a pun based on the fact that 番長（ばんちょう）sounds similar to what’s they’re supposed to call her.

Unfortunately for me, I can’t quite hear whether they’re calling her. It sounds to me like いんちょう, which usually means ‘director’, but a friend of mine hears it as いいんちょう (‘comittee chairman’) which would also make sense.

クラス院長
クラス委員長

Does anyone here with a knowledge of school-related terms know which it’s more likely to be?

[thisiskyleMember]

I would guess the second but it is just a guess based. It’s based on the fact that I’ve heard 委員長 before and haven’t heard 院長. Not great evidence…

[JoelMember]

It’s いいんちょう – the class president. It’s an extremely common term in school anime – often one of the main characters is the iinchou. The iinchou is the person who says “Stand! Bow!” when the teacher walks in.

[PencilMember]

Got it. =)

In the other thread, MomoIro kindly told me about the word 略. Going on Jisho, one of the example sentences for the word is “名前を略さずに書きなさい。” Apparently, it means “Write your name in full”, but as far as I understand, it seems to mean the opposite. 名前を略さずに =Your name abbreviated (although I’m unsure about how the さず part works) 書きなさい=write.

So…could someone please explain to me what part of the sentence makes it negative? Is it the さず?

[JoelMember]

The さずに is not one chunk – it’s 略さ + ずに. 略さ is the negative stem of the verb 略す, to abbreviate. Vnegずに means “without doing something“. So it’s “write your name without abbreviating”.

Had to dig out the advanced grammar dictionary to find that one, but it helps to recognise that the さ is part of the verb’s okurigana. =)

[MisterM2402 [Michael]Member]

A sentence in my Core 2000 deck says「嘘をついてはいけません。」, which the English says means “You mustn’t lie.”. I thought ～てはいけません grammar meant “must do ~”, and that to change it to “must not do ~” you had to change the form of the te-verb. Shouldn’t it be「嘘をつかないではいけません。」? Wait… is it つかないで or つかなくて? :S

[thisiskyleMember]

Be careful Mister.

食べてはいけない – eat + won’t work = eating is bad news = must not eat

食べなくてはいけない – don’t eat + won’t work = not eating is bad news = must eat

and it would be つかなくて

• This reply was modified 12 years, 8 months ago by  thisiskyle.

[JoelMember]

~なければいけません = should do, which might be what was confusing you. ~てはいけません = must not do.

~ないで means “without doing” or “don’t do, and”. In some contexts, it functions the same as ずに, mentioned in my post above. There’s a slightly subtle difference from ~なくて, though I’m not entirely certain on what it is. Something about “cause for human emotion in the main clause”. You’ll most often see ~ないで in ~ないで下さい.

[PencilMember]

Could someone please tell me the difference between 親父 and 親爺? (If there is any.)

[thisiskyleMember]

I doubt there is one. What are you trying to say?

[MisterM2402 [Michael]Member]

Damn… I must have been really tired when I looked that up on Tae Kim last night :P I mean, I’d covered that grammar point before, but I was a little unsure so I thought I’d double check. Now I’m checking Tae Kim again today and see that it was perfectly obvious which was which >.> What happened there…? :S The ないで thing seems obvious today as well – I remember learning about it both with 下さい and with ずに, so I must have momentarily forgot :/ Thanks for confirming though guys :D

@Pencil: The second is probably just an older variant of the first. Only 3 results in ALC for it, so I wouldn’t worry about seeing it day-to-day :)

[MisterM2402 [Michael]Member]

I’ve got a strong feeling this has been asked before, but I can’t remember the answer :P

How would you read 「２、３人」? Would it be 「に、さんにん」 or something more like 「ふた、さんにん」? Or perhaps 「ふたり、さんにん」? The last one seems most likely, but I’m still unsure.

[JoelMember]

My vote’s on “に、さんにん”

You (or someone) did ask this exact question before, yes. I’ma go digging.

Edit: Found it. http://www.textfugu.com/bb/topic/today-i-learned/page/4/#post-23067

• This reply was modified 12 years, 7 months ago by  Joel.

[MisterM2402 [Michael]Member]

@Joel: Aha, I knew it! :D Thanks for finding that for me ;)

[ルイMember]

So I just read the ある/いる lesson and was wondering about something. I’ve already learned about having and existing from another source than Textfugu, but something new came up here that I don’t understand:

“When you are using ある to indicate where something exists, though, you use the に particle (remember how に shows where something is at or moving to?).” Followed by the example sentence: “私 の アパート には さいふ が ある。” which obviously uses the particle には, not に, but no explanation is given as to why.

If it weren’t for the fact that the には particle is used in more than one sentence in this lesson, like “いえ　には　子犬　が　いる”, I’d have thought this was a mistake… can someone enlighten me why には is used?

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