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

[missingno15Member]

The reason why its called this is because this song uses the lineup of winners of the 2011じゃんけん大会 where Mariko took 1st place. 1st place, which is the top/上 is where Mariko stands and “from the top is Mariko”.

[JoelMember]

Aye, the figurative sense was my next guess. =P

[NeilMember]

@missing

Thanks, every bit of knowledge helps, by the way when I try to play the video it says it’s private.

One other thing is there any when reading text to be able to tell where one word ends and the next starts other than amassing vocab and doing it by recognition.

[Anonymous]

Particles are a main flag that a word finished and a new started. If it’s just Kanji together it’s up to your vocab.

[マーク・ウェーバーMember]

Hello guys

Quite a while ago I went over the grammar / expression 「かねる」 and thought that I would slowly get to understand how this grammar is different from potential form / ことができない but I haven’t really learned anything since this grammar is so rare. So today when I saw「 ことができかねる」 I thought that there definetly must be a difference from this grammar and other ways to express things can / can’t happen. But I fail to understand this difference clearly :(

The explanations from Tae Kim say;

“When attached after the stem of a verb, かねる expresses the subject’s inability, reluctance, or refusal to do something. It can often be translated into English as “cannot” or “(am) not able.”

But yeah, I can’t tell the difference clearly between this grammar and other ways to express the same thing, so it would be great if someone could explain it to me :)

I don’t need an explanation of かねない ^^

Thanks in advance

[JoelMember]

According to the intermediate grammar dictionary, かねる conveys more the impression of “not in a position to do” or “not possible to do” rather than simply “unable”. It’s apparently more similar to the にくい ending than it is to できる. It does specifically say it can’t be applied to potential verbs, because it “creates a double potential meaning”, but also adds that there are two exceptions to this – わかる and できる – but doesn’t really explain why, or exactly what the effect of できかねる is…

[マーク・ウェーバーMember]

Thanks, even though I am still somewhat confused about the meaning I understand it better now :)
I should get that book myself soon :/

 

[vanandrewMember]

Lang-8 awkwardness time.

I did an entry based on the textfugu ‘if’ lesson, and ‘wanted’ to say “If it is cold, come to Australia” (as I’m in Australia, telling them to come here if it is cold).

さむかったらオーストラリアにきます。

Corrections I got changed it to “…go to Australia.”

さむかったらオーストラリアに行きます。

Please explain. Can I not use “きます” in this way?

[Anonymous]

Wrong form of the verb. As you wrote it, it simply means that you, the writer, will come to Australia. Correcting it to 行きます is probably the best way they could considering how little sense it made.

来てください (te-form of the verb, ください just to be polite) Is the correct way to ask someone to do something.

[JoelMember]

Or 来た方がいいです – you should come to Australia.

[vanandrewMember]

Thanks guys.

[XuanMember]

Hi, i found a sentence on twitter that i don’t understand and hope someone here can help me :) My english is not so good but i can try to explain what i don’t understand about the sentence.

The sentence is “俺が彼氏でもいいって思う女性はRT”  this is a hashtag on twitter to retweet if you think the statement is true or agree or something, but i can’t seem to find out the whole sentence.  Some translations i have made is :

” girls who think i am a good boyfriend RT this” or “girls who think i may be a boyfrind RT this”

But i’m not sure if the translations above is correct.

The main reason i don’t understand the sentence is because of the でもいい in sentence. What does it mean and what is it used for? also if someone can translate the japanese sentence above correct if i translate it wrong?

Thanks in advance for help! and again sorry about my english!

[マーク・ウェーバーMember]

loosely translated, since this sentence doesn’t end up sounding very natural when translated strictly. This is the meaning of it:

Girls who wouldn’t mind having me as boyfriend, retweet this.

[JoelMember]

(て-form) + もいい = “it’s alright if X”

先生でもいい = it’s alright if he’s a teacher

これを食べてもいいですか = do you mind if I eat this?

[XuanMember]

Thanks for help guys! understand the sentence better now :)

• This reply was modified 12 years, 2 months ago by  Xuan.

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