Questions tagged [interpretation]
The interpretation tag has no usage guidance.
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how is 積み重ね connected to the sentence?
This song is called snowdrop, by Luna Haruna, and I don't understand the intention behind 積み重ね in the sentence. I understand that the feelings are piling up, but I don't see how the noun 積み重ね would ...
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What does 幸せだと mean in this context?
This song is called snowdrop, by Luna Haruna. I don't understand how shiawase+da+to are connected to the sentence
すごく ありふれてて
すこし 退屈な 今日も
二度と来ない しあわせだと
明日は もっと 思えるかな
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How does exhaustive listing interact with quirky cases?
It is well known that subjective-が can have exhaustive-listing properties, implying that the sentence applies no further within the universe of discourse than the subject:
私がした。-> “I'm the one who ...
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interpretation of ひとの in ひとの布団
The English translation I have expresses this as "strange mattress", but it's not clear to me why. Is this ひと the same as 人? In the given context below, is it a short-hand way of saying &...
user57359
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This particular usage of くらい
サービスはフルコースだから、時間が足りないくらいだけど
What is the function of this “〜くらい” here? Is it similar to “〜だけ” in the same place and does the sentence mean “There just isn't enough time though.” or is there something ...
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interpretation of “〜かもしれないけど”
I often see this phrase and I'm never too sure about the specific range of interpretations. In particular the literal translation would be “may ..., but ...” but I feel this is an idiom in English ...
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Confusion with interpreting NHK title and subject scope when using て form
I read this article on NHK about Christmas cakes and it has this title:
クリスマスのケーキ 卵の値段が上がって高くなりそう
But I'm somewhat confused on how to properly interpret the title. I'm not sure what 高くなりそう (seems to ...
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This fantasy world description: 時の異次元世界
Excuse me, I'd like to know if "world with a different time dimension" is an accurate/sufficient translation of 時の異次元世界. Thank you.
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What does 亜字形図象 mean?
In particular I was not able to find 図象 in any dictionary; I wonder if it is perhaps a typo and the author meant 図像.
In the case that the author meant 図像, would it then simply mean "icon made up ...
user57359
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"魂 燃え立つ 天の降るとも" having "魂" read as "こころ" and "天" read as ”雨"? (Bleach)
In Bleach Sennen Kessen-hen, at the end of each episode, an old poetic-style line or two is read to invoke the next episode. But I wonder whether it's actually some old poetic style of speech, or if ...
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Understanding かっ飛ばすin this context
According to Jisho, かっ飛ばす means something like sending a ball flying among other things.
My issue is interpreting the verb when it directly affects people, like the following example:
私と君とでかっ飛ばそう
...
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What are these words referring to in this sentence: 「咲く場所を厭わない私の体は...」
In One Piece, when Robin reveals her Hana Hana no Mi ability to Pell, she says 咲く場所を厭わない私の体は...あなたを決して逃がさない.
On one hand, I have an idea of what she is saying. I imagine it would be along the lines of ...
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Help with understanding this "quote": 「現身に飢獣を降ろす 月下の能力者」
I'm currently watching an anime called 文豪ストレイドッグス and I'm having some trouble with this sentence:
現身{うつしみ}に飢獣{きじゅう}を降ろす 月下の能力者
In the scene there's a character who's transforming into something like ...
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Help with understanding the following sentence: 考えても見るがいい
So, again, the sentence is
考えても見るがいい
and the provided English is
Just think about it.
(context)
I don't understand quite anything about the sentence. I know of the てみる structure but I don't really ...
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Role of の and meaning in the sentence "その瞬間の自分の手に〇〇がにぎられている"
The complete sentence, although I don't think it is necessary, is the following:
その瞬間の自分の手に、人類すべての運命を決定付けるような、重大なターニングポイントがにぎられているなんていうことは、分かるはずがないんた
So, if the intended role of その瞬間 was to be "...
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Trouble with the meaning of きっかけ in a sentence
The sentence is the following.
きっかけはほんの些細なことだとしても。それが、未来の大きな流れを決定づけてしまうこともある。
(I'm not really sure if the first period is supposed to be there, but the narrator took a relatively long pause after ...
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Help with understanding roles and meaning of this phrase: 脳が処理をしないかのどちらかなんだ
The phrase is part of this following line:
普段の生活の中に埋もれている何気ないことなど気にも留めないし、知覚したとしてもすぐに忘れるか、脳が処理をしないかのどちらかなんだ。
Actually I'm also unsure about the role and meaning of the か in the second to last clause ...
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What function does ことをする serve here?
In ran into this sentence
「ベレト君は気に食わないこと全部に悪いことをしてました」
but I'm having a hard time making sense of it. I get that the first part means that "the stuff Beret finds distasteful".
But I'm not ...
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Interpretation of 人間を食うほど強くなれる
So
人間を食うほど強くなれる
does this mean "the more humans you eat, the more stronger you can become" or "can become stronger to the extent of eating humans"?
The second one seems best if I ...
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what does it mean when there is Verb+Adverb+Verb
おかげで僕は、辛うじてこいつらへの不信感を誤魔化せるギリギリに留まっていられた。
In English, would we use a comma here? I heard somewhere that Japanese doesn't use commas in those situations. I feel like the same scenario would be:
...
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does もの mean thing here?
しかし禰豆子さんのかかっている暗示は人間が家族に見えるものでは?
Does this mean thing? It feels like the もの substitutes 暗示, is my understanding correct?
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Is my understanding correct on this sentence? Particularly, use of だけでも
話だけでも聞いてから結論を述べれば良いだろう
Even if its just a story, you should probably state your conclusion after hearing it.
The main thing I'm sceptical about is that だけでも, does it mean "even if it's..." ...
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What does 前かmean?
痛恨のミス。本来なら家を出る前かホームルーム前に回しておくのだが、今朝は眠過ぎてそこまで頭が回っていなかったのだ。
It's from a light novel 時々ボソッとロシア語でデレる隣のアーリャさん1
The first question is: what does 前+か mean here?
The second one is:
家を出る前かホームルーム前に回しておく
...
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What does ふらふら mean? And can お花 mean 花嫁?
I'm reading 魔女の宅急便 その５ 魔法のとまり木, and there's a sentence I don't understand.
Kiki, the main character of this story who is a witch living with a speaking cat, does a delivery service, and gets something ...
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What does とびっことりっこ mean?
I’m translating a Japanese novel into my language. The novel I’m working with is a fantasy story about a teen witch and children. But I’m not sure about the meaning of とびっことりっこ which appears several ...
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What does こんな青い空のなか きっとわたしは 空いろで 風のかたちで はこばれる mean?
I'm translating Japanese novel into my language.
The novel I'm working with now is a fantasy novel about a witch, written for young adult.
There's a song that the witch sings during she's flying in ...
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What does 人が重なるように働いている mean?
I'm translating a Japanese novel.
Here's a part of the novel I'm working with:
Aさんの指図をうけてお魚をつぎつぎ焼く人、ならんだおなべのスープをかき回す人、野菜を洗う人、きざむ人、できた料理を大皿に盛る人、人がかさなるようにはたらいています。 つくっても、つくっても、まだまだたりません。
I'm not sure ...
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「手があれてひっかかっちゃう」とは何ですか？
日本の小説を外国語に翻訳している外国人です。
今、手がけている小説にこんな文章があります。
（Aは主人公、Bは別の登場人物）
Bさんは布を包もうとして、Aをちらっと見ました。
「これはわたしの自慢のべールなのよ。あなた、ちょっと見たくない？」
「ええ、とても」
Aはこたえました。
Bさんは「手があれてひっかかっちゃうから・・・」とつぶやきながら、手のひらを合わせて何回もこすると、...
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「ぬれているようにまっくらです」は一般的なたとえですか？
Japanese
日本の小説を外国語に翻訳している外国人です。
今手がけている小説に、
二人は森の中にそろそろと入っていきました。空に残った明かりが少しは木の間からさしていると思ったのに、森の中に入ったとたんだれかが戸でも閉めてしまったように急に暗くなりました。冷たい空気が流れてきて、まわりはぬれているようにまっくらです。
という一節があります。
最後の「ぬれているようにまっくらです」...
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Can we use ~た form to make a verb an adverb?
I've got this phrase:
コンタクトすると目が乾いた感じになって、目が赤くなります。
Which means:
When I use contacts, my eyes feel dry and become red.
Pretty easy, but there's a little thing with the usage of the ~た form which I ...
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How do I interpret and relate the elements in bold in the following sentence?
I am having difficulty parsing the sentence below and understanding its meaning. Is the narrator saying that he doesn’t understand “practical pain” like hunger, or the more extreme pains like his own ...
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What is this な? 「変態」ってな
（ナオト） お前のパンツ買うの忘れた。
（真由） それぐらい ちゃんと持ってきてます。 変態。
（ナオト） お前 「変態」ってな…。(source)
（桐乃） あんたが沙織とこそこそ仲よくなったりしたから、ややこしいことになったんじゃない
（京介） っていうか、興味津々じゃねえか！
（桐乃） うるさい！あんたこそ、何よ、あやせ見て デレーっとして。人の親友をあんな目で見んな！変態！
（京介） ...
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What is ７つ referring to in this sentence?
The following is text from the opening of the game Fire Emblem Monshou no Nazo:
おお！ 我らが母なる大地
７つを１０００も重ねた間
絶望という時代あり
我らが 天に救いを求める事
７年と７月と７日の間
If I understand correctly, the highlighted phrase says ...
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私は母さんを助けたかったんじゃない (Negative or not?)
Can you help me with this line?
私は母さんを助けたかったんじゃない
I know that （ん）じゃない doesn't necessarily make the sentence to be negative and when it comes to じゃない, intonation matters, so it's difficult sometimes ...
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What does ご本家様 means?
I was scrolling twitter and saw this word that I've never seen before. These kanji together do not compose a word that makes sense to me, at least.
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I don't know how to interpret this line 死んだと知らさせるより受け入れがたいから
I don't understand very well what a character wants to say...For context, this character is on the verge of dying, he was cursed and had only a day to live and tries to find the one who cursed him....
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Is this topical tangent really as abrupt/unconnected as it feels to me?
Okay, so I'm attempting to translate the text from an obscure Japanese Super Famicom game (for fun/general posterity). (This is not a translation or proof-read request of course - those are against ...
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A dialogue from 『狼と香辛料』
ロレンス： 俺、いや、俺達は商人だ。儲かれば何でもいい、笑うのは金が入ってから、泣くのは破産してからだ。そして俺達は笑うんだ。
ホロ： ああ すっとした。ま、ここ数百年まともに会話しとらんのじゃ喜怒哀楽に脆くなっとる。これでぬしの前で二度泣いたがな、ぬしの前でなくても泣いたじゃろう、何か言いたいか分かるかや？
ロレンス： 勘違いするなと
ホロ： うむ
ロレンス： ...
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How to interpret whose じいちゃん is being talked about
Context: A mom talking to her son disapprovingly about him turning the family liquor store into a convenience store.
死んだ親父がじいちゃんの代から受け継いだ酒屋を潰すなんて許さない
How do we know whose じいちゃん is being talked about ...
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interpretation of a sentence -"だから別れ話しも できなくって"
I am trying to understand the following short conversation. But I have some trouble understanding the last sentence.
female 1: まだまだ 忙しそうだな…
female 2 looking at phone sad: うん… だから別れ話も できなくって…
My ...
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Can "ケンカになったのよ" be talking about a hypothetical?
In the latest chapter of One Piece this exchange happens between おでん, a skilled swordsman wondering why his disciples won't learn his style and his wife, トキ:
おでん: "おでん二刀流"最強だぞ?なぜ受けつがない!!
...
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Why can't まちがいなく失敗 mean 'a zero-mistakes失敗'?
失敗するのを気にしたら、まちがいなく失敗してしまう。
=If we think of failure, we will certainly fail.
When I read the example the first time, thinking it's a proverb, I interpreted it like:
If you mind failure, you will fall ...
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How did this girl interpret this sentence?
Unsure of how Girl 2 (bold line) interpreted what was said by Girl 1. The reader learns shortly after that 鈴木 and 高橋 were both part of the same group, and in similar positions(いじられキャラ）.
Looking at the ...
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Can this sentence be interpreted in more than one way?
I read a sentence
彼女はわかっていた。あるいは、わかっていると思っていた。
It was translated as "She knew, or she thought she knew/knows."
Prior to seeing this translation, in my head, I interpreted it as "I knew her, or ...
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目が小さいですか Interpretation
目が小さいですか
This is found in the Genki 1 textbook (page 144).
When I read it I thought it meant "Do you have short eyesight?", but when I use two translator apps they both say it means "Do you have ...
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Is my translation accurate? 自分の思ってる事『を』人『に』伝えられないだけじゃないんですか…？
自分{じぶん}の思{おも}ってる事{こと}『を』人{ひと}『に』伝えられないだけじゃないんですか…？
So in this sentence ↑ : 自分{じぶん}の思{おも}ってる is attributive to 事{こと} to create:
"A thing I've been thinking about myself"
Since there's no word order ...
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Interpretation of この人の家族『は』一体どんな気持ち『で』100万円出したんだ...?
I would like to know if my analysis and interpretation is accurate or not.
この人の家族『は』一体どんな気持ち『で』100万円出したんだ...?
Source
Interpretation
この this → 人(person)の(possessive marker)家族(family)『は』(topic marker)...
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How should I understand 「よくね」in this comic?
In the final comic of the web series 百日後に死ぬワニ ("The Crocodile Who Dies After 100 Days"), which you can access here if you don't mind the spoiler, the crocodile receives this final message:
How should ...
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What's the actual implication of 中止だ中止?
The following image has been going around Japanese twitter recently with the hashtag #中止だ中止, for two reasons:
Feb 28, 2020 would have marked 147 days until the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games
There is ...
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「来たるべきバカのために」 in a book title
The title of this book is 「勉強の哲学 来たるべきバカのために」.
What's the intended meaning of 来たるべきバカのために? I would venture "For the fool who is to come" (i.e. 'the fool who will be with us in the future'), but why?
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