Japanese Help Questions/Translations II
 

Starting this new thread because it looks like when a thread gets too long it starts losing posts.

(Continuing from the previous thread)

The discussion about the pitch accent was very insightful. And it blew my mind a little knowing that it was led from a simple word. I am definitely taking notes.

Thank you and good luck finding the pitch accent dictionary.

^^ Oh this is also useful for me, knowing that it`s called pitch accent. (Yeah, I also see German has pitch accent too. Has every language a pitch accent)
Anyway, I think I order an pitch accent book. Has anyone experience with NHK日本語発音アクセント辞典​ 新版 ?

Yeah, pitch accent is one of the things that I think Japanese courses could spend a little time teaching at the beginning. I mean, one class period won't give you the ability to use it properly, but it will make you aware that pitch accent is a big deal in Japanese. If you wait too long in your studies, you'll have already formed bad accent habits. I am not very good at all with pitch accent.

Well, at my school they did teach it. It was a really good school. All books were written in Japanese only, from the beginner level, and English was banned in school (except breaks).

@KyleGoetz's
I think school generally could make some courses in accentfree speaking or so. I think it would also help in other languages, to speak better, if there would be some voice training in school.
About pitch accent I hear really late, before I thought Japanese is more or less monotone.
Unfortunaly I`m anyway really bad in speaking languages, I can`t even speak German accentfree. (Sure slowly I see the differences between Swiss German and Standard German, but learning new way of speaking isn`t that easy)

My Japanese university (桜美林大学) offered one while I was there, but I opted not to take it. Now I wish I had.

I have a very basic question for someone, if they wouldn't mind ^^

Is this a right way of asking for help:
Tasukete oshiete kureru?
Can I ask you for help?
Or would it be something like;
Tasuke ni (o?) oshiete kureru?

Or neither OTL if you could reply would be wonderful <3

おしえる has not much to do with "ask." It means "teach."

IN any case, "to ask for help" is 助けを求める.

助けを求めてもよろしいですか。"Is it OK to ask [you] for help?"

Or just

助けてくださいませんか ("Could you help me?")
or
助けていただけないでしょうか ("Could I get some help from you?" except it sounds much nicer than this—the English almost sounds impatient)
in increasing order of something. The first lifts up the addressee. The second humbles the speaker.

ホシ大好きー♪
というか、自分の周りにある自然、全部大好き。

After looking at it a few times i'm thinking that i have to say ある and 自然 like it's one word.
Even though i know the words, i don't think i would have understood if someone said it to me in a conversation.

Is it a more natural way of saying 自分の周りの自然 ?

Are you familiar with the structure of the relative clause in Japanese? 「自分の周りにある自然」 is a relative clause. In Japanese, the main noun of a relative clause comes at the very end of it while, in English, it comes at the beginning.

自分の周りにある自然 = the nature that exists around me.

私が昨日行ったレストラン = the restaurant that I went to yesterday

I'm not sure this is a helpful way of explaining it to a non-native speaker. Heck, I still have problems with why 運営者である私 is considered correct while 運営者の私. Is it because 運営者 cannot act as a noun/adjective thing with の, so you have to use である instead? It's not my confusion over relative clauses. I have zero problems with relative clause construction in Japanese when any verb is considered. ヘビの喰ったねずみ provides no problem for me. It's just when である is concerned. I wonder if I should be using の instead.

アメリカ人のカイル vs アメリカ人であるカイル is a very similar type thing. I've always had problems specifically with when to use 名詞である名詞. I remember back as a student this was always something that got corrected on my compositions.

masaegu, can you explain when to use 名詞である名詞 vs 名詞の名詞? I know sometimes の doesn't act as a possessive, so I'm not talking about the times when I mean "the X belonging to Y" as YのX.

Not sure what 運営者である私 and 運営者の私 has to do with Mercury's question. In the original question, ある means "to exist" but in yours, it means "=", the equation.

運営者である私 and 運営者の私 are both correct although the latter may sound rather informal if used in situations in which the listener/reader would expect the former to be used.

運営者である私 = I, who is the manager
運営者の私 = me, the manager

More emphasis on "being the manager" is implied in the former phrase. If you are talking about a task that should be performed by none other than the manager, you would want to use the former. If you used the latter to talk about such a task, you could end up sounding like you were saying it could possibly be performed by the next person in the hierarchy.

In other words, it would be wise to use the former on a more serious topic and the latter on a less serious one.

１．Ａ国の今回の行動はアメリカ人であるカイルには受け入れがたい。

２．このサンドイッチはアメリカ人のカイルには小さ過ぎる。

If you use the other phrase for #1, it would still be acceptable though slightly too colloquial.

It would sound fairly strange if you said #2 using the other phrase.

Haha, you're absolutely right. I got so caught up in my own problem that I got off topic!

あ、なるほど！
うむ〜、オレ太ってへんとおもったねんけどなぁ...

OK, probably too much of a goofy attempt at Kansai dialect there!

Ah, that clears it up a bit. It was good getting a name for this kind of thing !
I think i've been on the topic in class, with descriptions of people.

Is "ビールを飲んでいる人" and "女と話している人" relative clauses then ?

Yes, exactly!!

It may take a while for you to get used to this structure with the noun at the very end. It sure took me a while to get used to the relative clause in English, too.

Halfway through this sentence I lose track of which particles fill roles for which verbs:
もう星さんの事はどうでも良くなってて、この関係にず ぶずぶはまっている僕にこいつの…

A native tells me the first part is, "Actually, I've become less interested in Shou-san, but I find myself getting more involved in this relationship," then sort of wandered away (it's the internet...)

And then we hit boku ni. I don't know how much of the preceding is a relative clause, I don't know what verb that "ni" belongs to, and the rest of the sentence is meaningless to me. The bit about her back is because the narrator is embracing a woman from behind.

Can someone help me line up all the parts of this and translate it?

Yo, friends.
Could you help me here?
These syntagms are killing me...
原作では、Southern Crossの刺客となったkillersは13人であるが、エピソード的
に3つに集約され るため、別のエピソードへ登場させる、あるいは新たにオリジ
ナルのheroesを敵として登場させるといった変更を加えて いる。
After it says that in manga Souther Cross sent 13 killers, I don't understand the following (I don't understand if it talks about other killers, 3 episodes or 3 killers together in just one episode).

Thank you very much.

It is saying:

1. It is impossible to have all 13 killers appear in only 3 episodes.
2. So the creators made changes to have the 13 killers also appear in other episodes.
3. And they even created new original heroes so that the 13 can appear to fight them.

Are you aware that 「もう星さんの事はどうでも良くなってて、この関係に ずぶずぶはまっている僕にこいつの…」 is an incomplete sentence?

It is usually impossible to translate an incomplete sentence because the word order is completely different between the two languages.

The second half lacks the main verb as well as other things. This makes translating the second half impossible because what is lacking, especially the verb, must come before the English counterpart for 「この関係にずぶずぶはまっている僕」.　If you know enough Japanese to tackle a phrase like this, you will know what I am talking about.

「この関係にずぶずぶはまっている僕」 sure is a relative clause but it is not the subject of the second half; therefore, it is followed by に.　

Something happened or someone did something to 「この関係にずぶずぶはまっている僕」= "me, who is deeply stuck in this relationship".

holy poop.
massive cut and paste fail.
We didn't even get to the part that's making me tear my hair out.

もう星さんの事はどうでも良くなってて、この関係にず ぶずぶはまっている僕にこいつの背中がそう僕に語りか けている気がした

My only excuse is that I was on a computer without japanese fonts trying to cut and paste it from a different forum that wasn't getting me any answers. I feel retarded.

We now have a complete sentence (minus a period :) ).

For serious Japanese-learners, I need to state out front that this is a kind of a butchered sentence that you will NOT find in our finer literature. It is something you might find in a light novel or even manga. DO NOT write like this.

The narrator feels that 「こいつの背中」 is telling him 「もう星さんの事はどうでも良くなってて」. In other words, 「そう」 refers to the imaginary statement 「もう星さんの事はどうでも良くなってて」. The imaginary comment means "Let me pray that you are no longer interested in 星さん." No one actually said it. This, I hope, solves 90% of yout trouble already.

"I felt as if this babe's back were saying 'Let me pray that you are no longer interested in 星さん' to me, who is deeply stuck in this relationship."

The "you" = the narrator

If you don't mind, I have question.

How would you say "What is he trying to say?"

For example, an english speaking person is speaking very bad, unintelligible japanese to two japanese people. One of the japanese people turns to the other and asks, "What is he trying to say?"

I'll have an abysmal shot: かれはなんいってにせんとすることか。

Thank you.

Most naturally, we would say:

「何（なに）が言いたいのかな。」 or
「なんて言ってるのかな。」 or
「何（なに）を言おうとしてるのかな。」
「なんて言ってると思う？」
All with a rising intonation at the end.

There will be no "he" because it is so obvious who is being talked about.

How do you even get にせんとすることか? :)

Is it just poor writing, or is it not high literary style, or both? And if it's not too difficult a question, what would've been a more literary way to say it, for the comparison?

(It's fan fiction, and someone is enjoying it, because they keep responding to his わっふるわっふる.)

Where did the pray come from? Is it because the よくなってて is in the te form? I thought it was just a continuative, but I can see it being an imperative now.
And now that we have the complete sentence, am I right in that the に on the first 僕 with a clause pairs with the 気がする, and the に on the second 僕 with the 語りかけている?

It is both; It is terrible writing. That is why I said what I said to the serious Japanese-learners in my last post even without knowing it was from a fan fic. Trained writers simply do not write like this. It has two rather big issues.

1. 「もう星さんの事はどうでも良くなってて」 is clearly an imaginary statement but the author makes no effort to show it to the readers. He just places a comma after this and continues to describe what he was feeling in his mind at that moment, resulting in misleading some readers into thinking なってて was in the continuative, which is what happened to the native speaker you mentioned in your first post.

なってて is the colloquial form of なっていて but it was okay to use the colloquial form there because it was part of an "imaginary quote".

2. Uses 僕に twice. The second one is completely useless and it makes the sentence grammatically incorrect.

Examples of how a better writer would have written this:
(but I will use as much as possible from the original．Otherwise, it will not serve the purpose of structure comparison.)

この関係にずぶずぶはまっている僕に、『もう星さんの 事はどうでも良くなってて』と、こいつの背中が（そう ）語りか けている気がした。

『もう星さんの事はどうでも良くなってて』と、この関 係にずぶずぶはまっている僕にこいつの背中が（そう） 語りか けている気がした。

こいつの背中が、この関係にずぶずぶはまっている僕に 、『もう星さんの事はどうでも良くなって』と、語りか けている気がした。

This fan fic writer failed to use the key word 「と」.

It is because the form 「～～ていて」　is often used in making wishes. It is short for 「～～ていてほしい」 or 「～～ていてください」. Another very common form is　「～～ように」 .

As for your second question, the second 僕に should not be there as I stated earlier. The remaining　僕に modifies 語りかけている.　The subject for the verb 気がする is omitted. It is, of course, the narrator.

ありがとうございました、 Masaegu先生。
Muito obrigado, amigo. :D

Wow, that bad? Ignorance is bliss, I've been enjoying it. OTOH, even in my head I re-write it in English style.

If I may continue to impose, can the subject of 気がする ever not be implied? What particle would mark that?

Thanks.

I typed "attempt" into a dictionary and it gave me せんとする and at some point in the past I read that こと makes the verb preceeding it a noun. So, I thought, せんとすること would become "attempting". The に before it... actually I'm not too sure about that one myself, but it was meant to be a preposition of some kind.

Link to this dictionary? 〜とする means "to try to do ~," but I have no idea what せん means.

行こうとする = to try to go
食べようとする = to try to eat
飲もうとする = to try to drink
etc.

せんとする is a literary way of saying "to attempt" and you will not use it in saying something as casual as "What's this dude tryin' to say?"

I was wondering more about how you got the ことか part. It makes no sense when combined with せんとする.

Masaegu,

Quick question about something you said above. Regarding the "what's he trying to say" translations, you said they'd have a rising intonation at the end.

Let's take なんて言ってるのかな。
With the rising intonation it means "What's he trying to say?" like you expect an answer. If you say it without a rising intonation, does it sound like a rhetorical question asked to oneself?

Yes, it is. Among the two issues I mentioned last time, #2 is utterly unacceptable. A careful 4th-grader could have easily spotted it. It is almost like saying "To me she gave it to me." Remember I said "almost".

No, it cannot. No one but the speaker can say 気がする in the first place. If you used the pronoun "I", the particle can only be は.

If you use 気がする about another person, it will be a conjecture, not a real feeling that you are certain of.

Yes, exactly. You are talking to yourself.

"I wonder what he is trying to say."

EDIT: There has been a tendency in the last 10-20 years where some young people actually ask these questions with a falling/flat intonation at the end even when they are expecting an answer.

No wonder. Gibberish, period.

せんとする is the literary form of しようとする.

It has nothing to do with セントルイス but one can say:.

「セントルイスをより良い街にせんとする移民たちの努 力は実にすばらしいものだった。」　

Rikai chan is better for looking up nouns/adjectives/verbs, not speech patterns. Also, I generally wouldn't use Rikaichan for E -> J, only a quick J -> E. It's not good for learning, more for quick reference. If you want to actually learn, you should put it into a proper online dictionary with example sentences and all so you get a feel for the meaning of the word. A lot of times dictionary entries can be misleading without an example sentence.

Is the word "fan" commonly used in Japanese? Does it mean that, to become a fan of (something), would be expressed as "（something）のファンになります"? Is there keigo for なります？

"Fan"? No.
「ファン」? Yes.

「ファンになります」 is correct and there is 敬語 for なります. For every singe verb describing a human action, there is 敬語.

なられる
なられます
おなりになる
おなりになられる
, etc.