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

This topic contains 966 replies, has 85 voices, and was last updated by  Hello 1 year, 8 months ago.

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  • #39036

    Joel
    Member

    Incidentally, it’s the て-form of にぎやか, not the particle で.

    I’m not sure I’d describe Hajime no Ippo as “bustling”, though. =)

    As for words meaning “princess”, I’ve not the faintest idea which is in more common usage, but I’m leaning towards ひめ. How often are you planning on talking to or about princesses anyway? =P

    #39038

    Yamada
    Member

    Thank you Joel.
    I intended to describe Hajime no Ippo as ‘lively’ (にぎやか(な)).
    As for princess, it was just something that interested me because I have heard it various times and wondered if they only used ひめ….

    毎秒は一世一代。
    #39084

    What is the exact difference between 鳴くばかりだ & 鳴いてばかりだ

    From what I can find on the internet and in my books they mean exact the same, but that is almost never the case in Japanese. And yes I know the て-form version can be used to say for example 鳴いてばかりいた. But both can be used as described in the first line, and it is difference between those expression I am interest in knowing.

    #39085

    Joel
    Member

    Near as I can tell 鳴くばかり means “nothing left to do but sing” (as in, you haven’t started yet), while 鳴いてばかり means “doing nothing but singing” (as in, you’re in the middle of it). 鳴いたばかりis “just finished singing”.

    None too clear on why you’re using 鳴く (of all verbs) as an example, though. =P

    #39086

    And 言わんばかり means as if to say. ばかり has many uses ^^ I would love to say there was a specific reason to chose that verb, but it was just whatever generic verb I could come up with. According to what I been able to find your explanation doesn’t seem to be correct.

    I found a great explanation of the uses of ばかり also explaining other things I wasn’t aware of when it comes to usage. According to the explanation the use of verb dic form. + ばかり is more natural than for example ~てるばかり & ~てばかり for negative change。

    Also worth noting


    > 「~ているばかり」は「~しているだけ」という意味ですが
    > 「~てばかりいる」は「いつも~している」ということで
    > 両者は違うと思うのですが、うまく説明ができません。

    On rensyuu.org they have a definition of  verb. dic. form+ばかり

    “Shows a continual/continuing negative change”

    This confirms what I explained previously.

    るばかり → negative change

    てばかり → something you do nothing but (as in so much that you do nothing but)

    てるばかり → something you do so much that it is the only thing you do.

    (the difference between てばかり and てるばかり is exactly the same as you find with ~ていない & ~てはいない just like explained in Japanese above)

    >  ○彼はいつも食べているばかりだ。
    >  ○彼はいつも食べてばかりいる。
    >
    >  ×彼らはケンカをしているばかりだ。
    >  ○彼らはケンカをしてばかりいる。
    >
    >  ×毎日、雨が降っているばかりだ。
    >  ○毎日、雨が降ってばかりいる。

    I suck at explaining grammar, but it makes sense to me now ^^; If you want to read more you can go here:

    http://nihongo-online.jp/tree02/treebbs.cgi?kako=1&log=6656

     

    #39090

    Shudouken
    Member

    Thanks very much for answering my question ^^

    And I’ve got another one that has been bugging me for a few days

    As I watch a lot of J-Drama and Anime, I often hear this when people are apologizing:
    御免なさいでした / 済みませんでした

    Why でした? Doesn’t this mean “I was sorry (and am not any more)”
    Why not just say “I am sorry”, or does this translate to “I am sorry about that thing I did”

    • This reply was modified 11 years, 8 months ago by  Shudouken.
    #39094

    Joel
    Member

    マーク:

    I’m glad you understand, because I can’t make heads or tails of what you’re trying to say. =P You seem to be thinking some things, but not actually writing them down – on more than one occasion, you’ve said “as I explained above”, but I can’t seem to spot the referenced explanations…

     

    Shudouken:

    I’m sorry about the thing that I did. Similar words behave similarly – ありがとうございました = thank you for that thing you did. It’s a little different from English, because our words “sorry” and “thanks” refer to the actual act of being sorrowful or thankful, whereas in Japanese, they refer to the regret or gratitude of the transgression or favour being done / that was done in the past.

    Incidentally, ごめん and すみません are usually written in kana. =)

    #39096

    As expected lol. I wrote the post while I was reading so it ended up being pretty messy :/
    I am sure you will understand it if you go read at the link I provided ^^

    #39125

    Yamada
    Member

    Lang-8 thingie I do not get:
    Mine: “今、マッサージのテーブルに上日本語をべんきょうです。”
    His: “今は、マッサージテーブルの上で日本語をべんきょうしています。”
    O.k. All I am curious about is why is “の” used here: “マッサージテーブル の
    上”? Can I not just use に?

    • This reply was modified 11 years, 8 months ago by  Yamada. Reason: here + :
    毎秒は一世一代。
    #39128

    missingno15
    Member

    His: 〇“今は、マッサージテーブルの上で日本語をべんきょうしています。”

    Now, (I am) studying on top of the of the massage table

    Because your sentence has huge grammatical errors, an English equivalent can not represent what you have written. Instead let’s list what’s wrong.

    You: ד今、マッサージのテーブルに上日本語をべんきょうです。”

    ・It’s ok as just ”マッサージテーブル”

    You can, however, have a string of nouns placed together when they’re not meant to modify each other. For example, in a phrase such as “International Education Center” you can see that it is just a string of nouns without any grammatical modifications between them. It’s not an “Education Center that is International” or a “Center for International Education”, etc., it’s just “International Education Center”. In Japanese, you can express this as simply 「国際教育センタ」 (or 「センター」). You will see this chaining of nouns in many combinations. Sometimes a certain combination is so commonly used that it has almost become a separate word and is even listed as a separate entry in some dictionaries. Some examples include: 「登場人物」、「立入禁止」、or 「通勤手当」. If you have difficulties in figuring out where to separate the words, you can paste them into the WWWJDICs Translate Words in Japanese Text function and it’ll parse the words for you (most of the time)
    http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar/clause

    ・マッサージテーブルの上に is essential

    Where on the massage table? On top, or the top of the message table. I think you are writing it extremely direct translation and thats a no no.



    -マッサージのテーブル | you used の because you learned it can also be used to describe something. that’s fine but the native suggests that you chain the two nouns together
    -に上 | に[on] 上[top] ????
    -日本語をべんきょうです。 | conflicts in grammar. you are attempting to describe the action of something (を) yet affirming the state of something (です) in the same phrase. The time when you can use both would be in the phrase 「日本語を勉強中です」. Otherwise, choose one.

    #39130

    Yamada
    Member

    Woahzers, thats a lot of text. Thank you missingno for the carification… I think I understand it now, except they used “no ue de” (sorry, have no access to IME keyboard now), not “no ue ni”. I think that they both indicate location but does it matter which I use?

    毎秒は一世一代。
    #39131

    Joel
    Member

    上で – indicates the location that the action is taking place.

    #39135

    Why would you be studying on a massage table…? o.0

    #39137

    Joel
    Member

    You’d rather study on a bed of rocks? =P

    #39142

    Yamada
    Member

    It’s actually a pretty good spot…. :)

    毎秒は一世一代。
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