I stumbled upon a random sentence on the Internet, the lyrics of a song, and I thought maybe you guys would want to crack it.
来年のことを言うと鬼が笑うって言うなら笑いたいだけ 笑わせとけばいい.
The official translation is: "They say the ogres will laugh next year, I say let'em laugh all they want".
It's probably an alright one, maybe a bit too liberal, but I'm not at a level where I can say that comfortably.
Anyways, my questions:
来年のことを言う
Why the heck does that take を? As far as I know, that would literally mean: They say "next year". Unless it's the object particle for another verb, but the only other one is 笑う. It doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.
鬼が笑うって言
The use of って言 there would indicate that every time we use 笑う in the sentence, it takes as a subject 鬼, am I right?
笑わせとけばいい
This is just a clusterfuck of verbs and particles and I don't know what any of it means. As far as I know, 笑わせ is causative form and ばいい means it would be fine if what it was said earlier happens, but about that とけ in the middle, I just don't know.
There is nothing in this sentence about Ogres laughing next year.
来年のことを言う - talk about next year
と - if/when
鬼が笑う - demons/ogres will laugh
って言うなら - if it's said, if that's the case
笑いたいだけ - just want to laugh
笑わせとけばいい - go ahead and let them laugh
笑う－>笑わせる－>笑わせておく－>笑わせておけばいい－>笑わせとけばいい
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Anonymous2013-04-22 14:12
来年のことを言うと鬼が笑う is an set phrase meaning that when someone talks about or plans the future, devils laugh because its impossible to actually know what will happen.
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Anonymous2013-04-22 15:31
>>527 >>528
Yeah, that makes it clear. Much obliged.
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Anonymous2013-04-23 13:09
Anyone care to explain the 3 giving verbs when they paired up with the -てform? I understand て+あげる and て+くれる, but the last one is kinda hard to understand.
te+Ageru = i give / do something for others
te+Kureru = someone gives/ does something to/for me
te+Morau = ?
thanks guys.
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Anonymous2013-04-23 13:19
もらう has a different actor than くれる. くれる and あげる both mean "give" (from different perspectives) while もらう means "to receive".
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Anonymous2013-04-23 15:04
I've got something to add to the tools.
memrise com is a great, anki-like srs based online course. I've been using it for JP/ CN / EN for a few months now.
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Anonymous2013-04-24 1:22
>>531
i knew that, but when it`s used with the て form it changes meaning.
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Anonymous2013-04-24 1:44
>>533
No, it doesn't, it just changes the verb. 買ってもらう=receive the favor of buying, 買ってくれる=buy (for speaker). If you don't specify what you're confused about, you're not going to get a good answer.
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Anonymous2013-04-26 13:12
hey /lang/ quick question
A: Bさん!
B: ???
A: ふふ、呼んでみただけ
does this just mean something like "I just wanted to try calling your name for fun"?
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Anonymous2013-04-26 14:26
Something like that. Another translation would be "just messing with you" or whatever. All it means is they had no reason for actually calling them.
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Anonymous2013-04-26 15:14
can anyone help me understand what ほど means?
I know it means `to a certain extend`, but i`m missing something
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Anonymous2013-04-26 15:18
>>537
If you don't show us where you're confused, we can't do anything that a dictionary can't. Post some examples where you're confused.
I'm having trouble discerning the distinction between "時" and "間" when referring to a period of time. The way I learned it, at least the way I think I learned it was something like this...
時 - refers to any period of time, past, present or future. An accurate translation would be "when". e.g.
子供の時、父と一緒にニューヨークへ行きました。
When I was a kid, I went to New York with my dad.
シャワーを浴びる時、顔を洗います。
When I take a shower I wash my face.
間 - refers to a specific interval of time, and is not at all ambiguous. e.g.
駅員と聞いた間、彼女を見ました。
While I was talking to the station attendant, I saw her.
日本にいた間、秋葉原へ二回行きました。
While I was in Japan, I went to Akihabara twice.
What really confuses me is that in the two "間" examples, it seems like "間" could be switched for "時" and the meaning would be the same. What is the true distinction between the two words? Don't waste your time proofreading those sentences, there's surely better and more natural ways of conveying those thoughts, but that isn't the point of this post.
Thank you.
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Anonymous2013-05-02 9:09
What's the difference between "During my time in Japan" and "While I was in Japan"? They basically mean the same thing, except 間 specifically states that it was a period of time. You're overthinking this.
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Anonymous2013-05-02 9:14
>>540
Essentially the difference between "when" and "while". Though it is obviously possible to replace one with the other in a way that avoids a blatant change in meaning, that doesn't necessarily mean they're the same.
"While I was in Japan / When I was in Japan"
The difference can be chalked up to repeated actions and actions that only took place during a particular period. If you actually read the discription of either (時 - refers to any period of time, past, present or futur) (間 - refers to a specific interval of time, and is not at all ambiguous. e.g.), you would already know that. Reading comprehension dude.
シャワーを浴びる間、顔を洗います
While I shower (particular), I washy my face (general)
Kind of weird that you're saying you wash you face, but only in that particular time in space.
駅員と聞いた間, 彼女を見ました。
While I was asking the station attendant (particular), I saw her (past, particular)
No weird at all to be doing something specific, limited to a finite period of time and occurrences, and then have a particular something happen once.
There's nothing weird about the washing the face sentence, and I honestly have no idea what you're going on about this "particular time in space" bullshit. It sounds like you think ～間、～します implies you only do the second action while you're doing the first, which isn't true.
The second works fine if you change it to something that actually makes sense like 駅員の話を聞いてる間.
Those descriptions are ones that I came up with, not ones I got from a dictionary or a book. The when/while comparison is what I normally rely on, but I just want a more concise comparison of the two expressions.
The problem that I run into is for something like
母の誕生日の間に母の一番好きな食べ物を作った。
In all regards, this sentence should make sense, right? But when I presented this to a teacher as an example application of the grammar, I was told it's wrong.
We might say "on" or "during" someone's birthday but Japanese (and most languages) don't work that way.
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Anonymous2013-05-02 14:28
I'm just trying to get a handle on when and when not to use 間 is all.
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Anonymous2013-05-02 14:37
Earlier in the thread, people were talking about ～よりいい and I'm a little bit confused on how that should be pronounced. Is saying it like ～よりー alright, or should I say something more like ～よりっいい? Which would sound more natural to a native speaker?
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Anonymous2013-05-03 12:13
>Is saying it like ～よりー alright,
Absolutely not.
>よりっいい
This is an extreme form of annunciation, where you practically alienate the two but it's closer to a natural pronunciation.
Japanese have the tendency in this situation to put more stress the on the いい, easily differentiating for the listener.
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Anonymous2013-05-04 13:10
What's going on here? Are the people who actually know Japanese too busy jerking it to lolicon doujinshi to post ITT? 時/間 is entry-level grammar.
>>540
Have some definitions from the dictionary of jap grammar book series:
間(に)
"the space between two temporal or physical points"
during (the time when); while
時
"a dependent noun which indicates the time when s.o./s.t. will do/does/did s.t. or the time when s.o./s.t. will be/is/was in some state"
at the time when; when
Your interpretation of the grammar is correct, and you could use 時 in the last two sentences without that making them grammatically incorrect, but 間 when used like this has stricter temporal implications. This does make the sentences grammatically incorrect the way you composed them.
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Anonymous2013-05-04 13:10
>>540
You didn't want "proofreading", but I will disregard that because it annoys me. "駅員と聞いた間" does not mean "while I was talking to the station attendant", it means "when I heard 'station attendant'". 駅員と話していた間 is what you were trying to type. Unlike what >>543 wrote, "～間、〇〇する" does in fact mean that the action takes place while whatever is in front of 間 is going on, and for the whole duration.
間に is what you should've used in both your sentences, unless you meant that you were watching "her" for the whole time you were talking with the station attendant (in which case the second sentence should've been 見ていた). The second sentence doesn't even make sense unless you were trying to say that for the whole period when you were in Japan you were doing nothing but going to Akihabara twice, which is physically impossible.
駅員と話していた間に、彼女を見かけました。
日本にいた間に、秋葉原へ二回行きました。
>>542
>シャワーを浴びる間、顔を洗います
>While I shower (particular), I washy my face (general)
No. It's close, but "when I shower, I wash my face the whole time" would be closer to the what's implied.
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Anonymous2013-05-06 18:16
>>551
>"駅員と聞いた間" does not mean "while I was talking to the station attendant", it means "when I heard 'station attendant'". 駅員と話していた間 is what you were trying to type.
But 聞く also means "to ask", doesn't it? Why it doesn't work like that in this case?
>543 here, by "only do action 2 while doing action 1", I meant that action 2 is never done at other times, not that action 2 is done the whole time you're doing action 1. I agree with you. This is all getting really confusing to explain.
駅員に聞きながら、
While I ask the station attendant,
Or "While I asked the station attendant,"
Depends on the tense of the verb you use at the end of the sentence.
Anon, could you please upload "An Introduction to Modern Japanese: Volume 2" for me? I've went through the whole internet and it's impossible to find it.