Questions tagged [grammar]
文法. A collective term for syntax (the way sentences are put together) and morphology (forms of words, including the way new words are put together). Often used to describe function words such as particles, to describe word endings, and to talk about general sentence structure.
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欠く vs. 欠ける vs. 欠かせる vs. 欠かせない
I can't clearly see the differences between the meanings of 欠く, 欠ける, 欠かせる, and 欠かせない that I get from resources like Google Translate, Deepl, or wwwjdic. For example, if I enter the following in Deepl
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Alternation between が and は in seemingly identical sentence structure
I found the following sentence online; it's a comment about three players A, B, and C that regularly compete against each other.
Aに勝てるのがBだけでBに勝てるのはCだけなの良いな
To me it seems like the structure of both ...
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Why is it one time のような and the other time のように (context: see text)
In this video at around 3m:44s she says:
～狩りというのは、いちご狩りのような、果物を自分で取ることや、潮干狩りのように、海で貝をとることに使うので、・・
Why does she use のような the first time but のように the second time?
My own guess would be that if we'd ...
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meaning of も in 毎日捨てるのも、もったいない。 [duplicate]
The sentence is from the やさしい日本語 blog. The author is talking about 残り湯 and what to do with it.
最近は、毎日お風呂にお湯をためて入っています。そのお湯（残り湯）をどうするのか？毎日捨てるのも、もったいない。 ですから、洗たくに使っています。
Could you explain the meaning/...
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Is this the use of には in this scentence natural? [closed]
立憲君主制を取るヴェレンシア国では、王族は政治家ではなく、外交官としての役割を期待される。諸外国に外遊し、自国のイメージを高め、商品や技術を高く売るのが王族の仕事だ。ヴァレンシア国のスポークスマンと言ってもいい。
そのため、王族の子女の世話をする保母や従者には、ネイティブの外国人が二年の任期でつく。王子、または王女が、...
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Can 'if' be used with a 'meta' meaning in Japanese?
This is hard to explain in a title, so here is an example of what I mean. In English, we can say things like:
If you haven't noticed, the entry's actually over on the other side.
Noticing where the ...
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Examples with prefix 専 (せん)
Jisho says that 専 (せん) can be used as a prefix with meaning "having a fetish for ...; specializing in ...; majoring in ...".
https://jisho.org/search/%E5%B0%82
However, I can't find any ...
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How to address someone like the owner of a guesthouse
So I am currently in Japan for vacation and also some short work visit and had the chance to use Japanese a little. I learnt things mostly from reading, so I struggled to formulate things verbally in ...
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What is the meaning of うちから
This is part of a reading comprehension question in the JLPT 1 exam. Complete question.
It's actually an excerpt from 「(ほんとうの自分）のつくり方ーー自己物語の心理学」
自分の姿がおぼろげにしか見えないうちから、まずは語ることを始めなければならない
What does ...
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What does 何ちょっと mean in this sentence? [duplicate]
The following lines come from a manga I'm reading. The male lead is a high schooler who uses a lot of truncated colloquial forms. He says the following lines, ruminating on an event where he should ...
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Sentence with と 来ている！ [duplicate]
I started watching Hi score girl, and in the first episode there is a sentence like this :
コイツはこんな所に来る 女の子ではなかったはず
成績優秀で誰からも慕われ―
しかも金持ちの娘と 来ている！
I've never seen と 来ている！
Is this a mistake in subtitles ...
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Can you use 観にくい( 観る+にくい) to say that something is hard to watch in the sense of that the topic/images might be hard to stomach?
Example would: この第二次世界大戦についてドキュメンタリーはちょっと観にくいけど、本当に面白いと思う。work to say: This documentary about WW2 is a bit hard to watch (hard to stomach) but it is very interesting.
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In a comparison using のほうが, what does the second と mean? [duplicate]
I am working through Genki I and it has the sentence 日本とカナダとどちらのほうが寒いですか and I can't work out what the second と does. From what I understand, と is "and", so it sounds like it's saying "...
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ーてもらう clarification
So does てもらう mean I got someone (asked someone) to do something for me? Or does it mean I recieved (blank) from someone?
For example, 彼に漢字を教えてもらいました. Would this mean, "I got him to teach me,"...
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Problem with the たい form
I was reading yotsubato! and I had a bit of trouble with this,The English translation
Says that it means I wanted ice cream but I thought that the past for of want was たかったです
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what does the ては mean here? [duplicate]
道すがら、近所に住む人達に会っては挨拶をしたのですが、無愛想な彼女は短い尻尾をゆらゆらさせるだけで、つーんと顔をそらしていました。
I have figured out it may be simillar to たら etc., but im not so sure.
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Particle の omitted when writing but not when saying
There are words, like 箱根関（はこねのせき）, 伊勢国（いせのくに） or 加賀国（かがのくに）that despite being written without a particle の before 関 or 国 in the previous examples, this particle の is said when reading them because it ...
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Any meaning lost by not translating~のこと in this sentence?
────アキバからの帰り道のことだった。
It was on the way home from Akiba.
Would the "だった" here cover both grouping everything that came before it and making it past tense?
"のこと" seems to generally ...
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Trouble understanding のに in cases such as のにいい
I am having some difficulty understand のに in some context cases such as
のにいい
のにかかる
のに便利
I understand that のに has two grammar points
in order to
despite, but
And after reading several questions ...
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Is verb + と同じくらい grammatical
ロンがハリーに興味を持ったと同じぐらい、ハリーもロンに関心を持った。
Harry was interested in Ron just as much as Ron was interested in Harry.
Is it grammatical to have と同じぐらい after a verb? I would have expected to see a nominaliser (...
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Seemingly redundant use of まま
ハリーはその子の鼻の頭がまだ汚れたままなのに気づいた。
Harry noticed that end of the boy's nose was still dirty.
I continue to be confused by まま. Why is it needed in this sentence? I know the broad idea that something is left ...
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Can と見る be used instead of と言う
Can 見る be used rather than 言う in this context？
Why is this written:
「なぜ止まったんだ」と僕を見ました。
Short Stories in Japanese for Intermediate Learners by Olly Richards, page 22
I would maybe have expected this:
...
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Can I substitute を with に in this sentence?
In the sentence:
姫様を助けてあげてください
The recipient of あげて is 姫様. So can I use 姫様に to explicitly imply the recipient and omit the object of 助けて (姫様を) and does the following sentence make sense?
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Double/Triple 'wa' particles in a sentence
I'm having trouble parsing the following example sentence from an online Japanese-English dictionary:
女性はレスリングは好まないが男性はふつうに好きだ。
Can someone explain to me how to make sense of the sentence? I'm ...
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How does one explicitly express “the tree behind which I sleep” and similar things? [duplicate]
My intuition says to me that this should be a simple “私が後ろで寝ている木”, or for instance, as a hypothetical example, to express “The knife inside of which I cut the meat” opposed to “the knife I cut the ...
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Use of どんな with no following noun
そんなことはどうでもいいよ。『例のあの人』がどんなだったか覚えてると思う? (Japanese TL)
Never mind that, do you think he remembers what You-Know-Who looks like? (original Harry Potter text)
I'm confused at seeing どんな with no noun ...
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When に does not seem to denote change of place
This answer explains that when used to indicate a place, で means the action is happening at that place while に indicated the verbs causes a change in place. That all makes sense until I run into some ...
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Understanding verb+の+verb/adjective
A group of girls go on a trip and now they are sleeping in their rooms in a hotel. At dawn one of the girls called リゼ tries to wake others up but she herself falls back to sleep soon. Her friend シャロ ...
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why using た in これからはどうしたものか？ [duplicate]
The phrase 「これから」 refers to the future, while 「た」 refers to the past. Why can they be used in this way?
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The usage of 当たり前 as subject
As far as I know, 当たり前 is an adverb. How come in the following instances it's used as the subject?
あの日見た夕日 あの日見た花火 いつでも君がいたね
当たり前が幸せと知った ー「合唱曲・群青」
君がここにいなくなって 当たり前がいなくなって ー「君の抜け殻」
I am a little ...
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What is ならぬ Ｍeaning in this sentence?
Found ならぬ in the following sentence and am unsure of what it's meaning is. Also would be nice if anyone provided a total translation for the whole sentence for increased clarity.
「...
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I'm struggling to understand how to use がち
The sentence I came up with was:
私は、学生は勉強を完了するために睡眠時間を短くする寝がちですから、これが起こると思います。
So essentially I was using がち to say how students "tend to/have a tendency to" sleep less. My 先生 said I used ...
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Does 「準備できた」have a meaning of "something is ready"?
I have heard「準備できた」from a game. I think the meaning there is "something is ready".
If so, which explanation is better?
1.「準備できた」is made from the 可能形 of 「準備する」(準備できる) and 助動詞「た」
2.「準備できた」is ...
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Negative-imperative for 形容動詞 and 形容詞
For verbs, we can use it's te-form to make imperatives and negative imperatives, such as:
走って！ 走らないで！
Run! Do not run!
Of course there's also 走れ！ and 走るな！
For 形容動詞 and 形容詞, however, I realize that I ...
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Why is the ga particle used here instead of o particle?
今は時間がありません
I do not have time now
In the above sentence, "I" is the subject and time is the object. Therefore after the kanji for an hour, an o particle should be used. Then why is ga ...
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Why use まで instead of 前に
電車が出るまで何か食べる時間があるぞ
There is time to eat something until your train leaves.
My English translation sounds rather unnatural. We would normally say "There is time to eat something before your train ...
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Meaning of XかXないうちに
ハリーは試してみた...しかし、振り上げるかあげないうちに、老人がひったくってしまった。
Harry gave it (the wand) a try, but no sooner had he raised it than the old man snatched it back.
I read this post on XかXないかのうちに with a translation of &...
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How does 一つとして work in this sentence?
オリバンダーの杖には一つとして同じ杖はない。
No two Ollivander wands are the same.
I'm struggling to parse this sentence.
オリバンダーの杖には同じ杖はない on its own seems to make sense -- "there are no wands identical to Ollivander'...
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What does し mean here?
人間は持たざる時には人並みを求めるが、一度人並みになるや、今度は人との違いを求めだし、人と同じ商品では満足できなくなるからだ
At first I thought し indicated reason, but からだ already indicates reason, so し here would be redundant.
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古典日本語について：「つ」で二つの名詞を連接する
最近Bilibiliで（実質的に中国版のニコニコ動画サイト）見つけたのは、文語版深海少女の動画です。
誰かがあのめっちゃ流行ってた曲「深海少女」の歌詞を古典日本語（文語）に変換し、動画を作り出しました。歌詞を見習う時、気になったのは最後の部分の一言です：
元の歌詞：
深海少女 腕を引かれる 歌う祝福のマリンスノー
深海少女 もっと知りたい 心惹かれるあの人を見つけたから
この動画：
...
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Verb-past + にゃいかん
最高の杖を持たにゃいかん。
You've got to have the best wand.
The meaning is clear, but I'm baffled by the grammar.
First, I'm assuming 持た is a typo for 持った, but maybe not?
Second, I'm guessing that にゃいかん is a ...
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question about が and 代わりに in this sentence
先生がかわりにしてあげます？
I came across this sentence and I cant seem to understand why が is used here. I'm roughly interpreting this as: "shall I substitute for the teacher?/shall I do x in place of the ...
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how とは work in this sentence [duplicate]
人間中心の見方とは別の視点で評価することもでくる
google translated it as
It is also possible to evaluate from a perspective different from the
human-centered perspective
how とは associates with "different"?
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Nuance of かと思えば in this context
敷石ぐらいの大きいな革製本、シルクの表紙で切手くらいの大きさの本もあり、奇妙な記号ばかりの本があるかと思えば、何にも書いてない本もあった。
There were leather bound books as big as paving slabs, silk covered books the size of postage stamps. There were books with ...
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the role of の in this sentence involving noun + の + verb in dictionary form
「鈴の転がるような、軽やかで澄んだ声だった」 what is the meaning of の in this sentence? my guess is that it meant something like: "It was a light and clear voice, like a rolling bell". This feels right, but I ...
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What does this "く” mean?
Context: in a song that I think is about love or relationships in some way, "♪生まれて 育ってくサークル" was a lyric. I was wondering what the "く" before "サークル" was...maybe a ...
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When to use けど vs もっとも?
Is there any nuance between these? From looking up the definitions, they seem similar in meaning (but, although).
Here's a sentence I found that uses both:
もっとも今年の夏は、どこも暑いらしいけど。
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what does という mean here
人間とは月のような存在だ。他人には満月を見せていて、人という光にあたって誰もが輝いて見えているが、その裏側は黒く、暗いものだ
is 人という光 a contract form of "人というのは、光" or it means "light called humman"?
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Help understanding tense of sentence ending in ~てもらってて
When you conjugate both ~てもらう and いる to the て form ~てもらってて, what does that do to the tense?
Example sentence: おばあちゃんに録ってもらってて。
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is か with volitional form also considered crude/rude
So, i read this, Usage of 'か' in short sentences. And they say that か in short form is considered crude, or rude. So would saying something like 行こうか be more or less crude than 行こう？
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