New answers tagged grammar
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When do you add の after a country name?
You add の after a country name when you don't want to represent it as a category. For example, フランス料理 is understood as French cuisine, but フランスの料理 is understood as dishes in France which may include ...
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Meaning of さもあろう
Yes, さもあろう is can be considered as a variant of さもあらん or さもありなん.
さ (然 in kanji) is an archaic equivalent of そう ("so", "this way") in modern Japanese. も is a particle.
Meaning of ...
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What is the で part in ではありません？
Good on you for giving Japanese a go!
Ya, Japanese and English are very different, structurally, and some of what's happening in Japanese makes more sense if you know some of the history (well, ...
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Why use 耳元 rather than just 耳?
The idea should be that objects making sounds are external to your ears. 耳元 is not a part of your body (e.g. this defines it 'close to one's ears'). Hence the choice. In that sense 耳元 refers to 風 ...
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Reporting on the emotions of another person in a relative clause?
As suggested by the search results, you can safely say 手伝いたい人 because you already know about their willingness to help. Saying 手伝いたがる人 is also perfectly correct, but it conveys an extra nuance of &...
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なるのではないか/なるのではないだろう meaning
Does なるのではないだろう need か to be grammatically correct?
No. All are grammatically fine. They can be used in appropriate sentences.
Is なるのではないか just a set phrase?
Practically I think it's better for ...
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に followed by nouns, what is its usage?
I want to offer a different approach to the question, because there seems to have been a misconception here. Particles like に don't really care what they're followed by.
Most of the usages of に I've ...
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Meaning of やって in 方法をやって見せ
This やる is simply "to do" or "to carry out". This やる indicates that she taught how to straddle the broom not by explaining it verbally but by actually doing it. ("To do a ...
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How does たり + される work?
I think your understanding is correct. 普通敵にしたりされるようなこと is the same as 普通敵にしたりされたりするようなこと. The second たり is omitted, which is common in recent informal speech.
普通敵にしたりされるようなこと
= 普通敵にしたりされたりするようなこと
...
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Can adjectives follow the に particle?
Adjectives are like verbs, in that they 'inflect', that is, have endings that indicate tense (or aspect), just like verbs. So 優しい should be thought of as '[to be] kind', 優しかった, 'was kind'.
に would ...
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-である form in written Japanese
である certainly marks the sentence as written-style, but in a style where you are using である, the normal past (perfective) would be ～た, 作られた; similarly, the negative would be 作らない and so on. These forms ...
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How does たり + される work?
Keep in mind how ~たりする typically works in modern Japanese,.... to do things like.
敵にしたりされる
parses as
They have things done by their enemies
adding ようなこと nominalizes this into
those things that ...
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Help breaking down えむさえいけそうなら
The basic translation of "えむさえいけそうなら" is indeed "as long as Emu can do it", but this "it" refers to not the jump itself but the additional rehearsal Tsukasa is suggesting....
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Need help breaking down some grammar
というか is almost a word on its own, and it often has very little substantial meaning. In this case, it's used like "or rather", "or maybe" or "I mean". A is trying to ...
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Understanding this usage of も
Yes, it marks the object of 考えている. (I don't know if it is correct to say it's a substitute for を. 自分自身をも is possible too.)
The subject seems to be アイ, and the sentence describes how she thinks of ...
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How to parse上で話し合い
Your understanding of each clause is perfect, but you have to reorder them like 2→1→3 for the sentence to make sense in English. Note that 上で is a modifier that 話し合いをする, and this entire combination is ...
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How to parse上で話し合い
Think of this like the following English sentence
If we don't discuss and clarify the points of discussion, our time will be wasted.
In English, the negation applies forward negating "discuss ...
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Clarifications on using ていく with verbs - using 着る as example verb
The answers are all no. 着ていく just means to put it on and go, to go wearing it or to put on clothes one after another whether you change it every time or put on another over the current one.
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Meaning of き in 唾をぶっかけて.き.やがるからな。
There are three components:
ぶっかける
くる
やがる
The difference between ぶっかけやがる and ぶっかけてきやがる is that the latter has くる（来る） → き in it. If you remove やがる and make it more polite, the expression would be ...
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"I hate him" = 彼が嫌い or 彼は嫌い? Ambiguity regarding the target of the sentence
Either can mean “[something] hates him” or “He hates [something]” depending on the context. “〜は” vs “〜が” in Japanese has nothing to do with subject versus object and in fact “〜が” has surprisingly ...
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What does AをBにしたら mean?
The sentence has the AをBにする construction meaning "to turn A into B", "to make A B" or "to consider A as B". She's talking about ramen made of Mei-senpai.
...
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Do Nする verbs require the する part with まで（に）?
You can also say 引越しまでに (noun 引越し + particle まで + particle に) , but it is often not thought as a form of verb 引越しする.
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道を行ったところ meaning "just down the road"?
The translation is fine.
Grammatically, it is just Location Expression + の + A meaning A located in... They are the same as 新宿の店 (shop at Shinjuku) or そこの本 (book there). This dictionary entry lists 所在 ...
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Past continous with adverbs of time
While your understanding of using テイル for repeated actions is not off,
the reason 与えた is used instead is the word 当時
is not exactly true.
It is more simply the writer's choice for the particular ...
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What is the difference between もとづいて and もとづき
The reason you could not find any explanation specifically about them is because the difference can be explained as a generic difference between a te-form and a masu-stem:
なく vs. なくて and stem form vs....
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やっぱり in this sentence (regret?)
I find that more often than not, やっぱり can be thought of more as "in the end..." or "after all", meaning like "Aaa, we don't have time after all!!" but without the formal ...
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How to "reverse" 〜てから〜てはなりません?
They are to some extent ambiguous, just as (I think) You must go to the pool after taking a shower is. I don't think there's any grammatical reason that it can't mean After taking a shower, you must ...
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How to interpret「～そうになるのを、」
贅肉がはみ出して
"[Her] excess fat stuck out and"
落っこちそうになる
more literally, "became like seeming to fall off"
Your translation seems fine to me, and putting those two ideas leads to the ...
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How to interpret「～そうになるのを、」
For the form of the relative clause, see internally-headed relative clauses.
V～そう, as you probably know, means 'looks like [it will] V', 雨が降りそうだ, etc. This form is a な-adjective, and thus all the ...
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Introducing an explicit subject into a sentence with a topic already existing
You can imagine this original sentence with no topic particle:
私が自分でミコトがどんな子かを見定める。
In this context, this topic-less sentence is already perfectly natural because the exhaustive-listing sense of が (&...
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「買ったやつ」the guy who bought, or the thing that was bought?
This 買ったやつ is "the person who bought it", so your initial interpretation is correct.
(その車は)[買ったやつがかなり遠くへ行ってしまうまで]走れるんだ。
The car can run [until the 買ったやつ goes quite far away].
The implied ...
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Introducing an explicit subject into a sentence with a topic already existing
The former would force the second topic to become contrastive
That’s not necessarily true. ミコトがどんな子かは is clearly shared information and the primary topic in this context whether there’s another topic....
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What is the role of まで in this sentence?
Yes, your understanding is correct. This sentence looks slightly clumsy to me, but the two まで are used in different ways:
The first まで is a particle meaning "until". 現在までのゲーム is "games ...
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How ほど is understood in this sentence?
This ～ほど is basically "to the point where ～" or "to such an extent ～" (see examples here). It modifies the following clause, so the sentence cannot be split there. When it's ...
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How ほど is understood in this sentence?
Among four parts of the sentence separated with 読点, the first, third and fourth parts presents their own fact, and the second (後年の～ほど) adds a description to the third part (パソコンは一般に普及しておらず) in terms ...
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Why is there a 'は' in these sentences, forming double particles?
It’s because if you drop は, the sentences become topicless, which is not necessarily valid. In other words, a sentence without は is not neutral.
家では勉強できない / 東京にはたくさん人がいる: 1. a straightforward ...
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Why does Bunpro call ないか incorrect here?
I agree with naruto that this is not incorrect, but is inappropriately blunt.
We can understand this without reference to historical Japanese, and thinking about language in general terms. Cross-...
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Understanding 買ってみたのに対応機種が違う
Your initial interpretation is correct. This のに is simply "although".
As for why your second interpretation is incorrect, remember that ～に is an adverbial modifier that never modifies a noun ...
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What does the last の in "おどるのはたのしいのです。" mean/do?
It's something called an explanatory-の.
What is the meaning of ～んです/～のだ/etc?
Wasabi: Explanatory のだ (んだ)
So the last の turns "It's fun to dance" into "It's that it's fun to dance"...
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Meaning of ば in the news
The two are separate sentences, and I think the speaker didn't know what to say next when they said 前から思っていまして、. They tried to say something after that and 今後もぜひ活躍していただければと思います came out. I.e. there ...
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Why does Bunpro call ないか incorrect here?
It's true that you should avoid using ～ないか in ordinary conversation. However, this is not because it's technically incorrect but because it's overly blunt.
Grammatically speaking, the following ...
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Why is there a 'は' in these sentences, forming double particles?
This is the contrastive は. This can be readily seen in the first sentence where emphasis is being placed on where in particular the individual is unable to study: neither at home nor in the library. ...
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Is 私は明日がスポーツを 遊ぶ。correct?
I'm not sure how much grammar you've studied already.
You'll definitely be understood.
If you've decided in your mind that tomorrow you're going to play some kind of sport, it would be better to state ...
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Is 私は明日がスポーツを 遊ぶ。correct?
As you thought, it seems possible to drop 私は from the sentence.
However, the sentence isn’t natural for the following reasons. First, スポーツ isn’t generally collocated with the verb 遊ぶ but with the verb ...
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Why is ‘は’ instead of 'が' or 'を' used here?
To me, the difference is like the below.
これはオンラインで聞けますか: (straightforward)
これをオンラインで聞けますか: 1. It would be convenient for me if this happens to be available on the internet, but is that possible? 2. ...
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Why is ‘は’ instead of 'が' or 'を' used here?
First of all, あなた is never used like the impersonal you in English. It always refers to a concrete person (often someone you don't know the name of). Even when it's used in an advertisement, it's ...
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Why is it されてる and not されている？
Yes, as you thought, 案内されてる is a shortened form of 案内されている, a combination of the verb 案内される in te-form + the subsidiary verb いる. When people use いる as subsidiary verb, い is often dropped although ...
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Why the つ after あのね？
That's a small tsu (i.e. っ) and not a つ, and as such represents a glottal stop. In context, this probably indicates that the utterance was cut off suddenly -- after all, the character looks to be ...
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Are questions ending in は polite or plain?
As the first answer points out, all of your examples are already polite, but it's because the use of honorific prefixes.
As I originally wrote in that first answer's comments, another situation where ...
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Are questions ending in は polite or plain?
This is already polite because of the use the prefix お.
This is similar to お[名前]{なまえ}は or お[誕生日]{たんじょうび}は. "What's your name?", "When is your birthday?"
ご[出身]{しゅっしん}は ("where ...
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