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なのだ

18 Jun 2014
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Is it possible to translate なのだ in a natural way when someone uses it at the end of a sentence, or is it just mannerisms/quirks in which cannot be expressed?
If it is possible to express なのだ, how would you suggest?

Thanks in advance!
 
なのだ

You're two years deep in a translation project without understanding this construction?

I just googled "Japanese なのだ" and found several explanations of the construction.

Rather than having us retype it for you, go check some of the already existing explanations and then come back to us if you have questions regarding it after having read them.
 
I've never said anywhere that I'm japanese fluent. And I'm not the main translator of this project. My main function in this project is to quality check. And, as I said in the other thread (which seems you read it), for half of the series we have resources to use as a basis, being our support material. So, since this series have kind of repetitive dialogues and expressions, once you "master it", it's not that hard to reproduce/emulate it.
And if you really read my other 2 threads, I've said in one of them that I only ask something after searching/googling for the subject in question after not finding a concrete answer.
I already know this is something basic and obviously I already searched about it, but I would like to have another opinions on it.
What I know about this topic is that なのだ could be mannerisms/quirks, and it is used to giving emphasis to a sentence.
But the "googled" options didn't gave me a more "natural" way to translate it, neither jisho.org.

なのだ it is assuredly that ...; can say with confidence that ...

Plus, you don't need to retype anything. If you find an useful link, you could just paste it here. It's simple.
 
なのだ

It isn't my job to go read all the stuff on this little iPhone screen and collate links for you,

I have not closely read your other threads because the instant I see all sorts of goofy crap from some goofy cartoon my eyes start to roll so far back in my head it makes reading difficult.

Now I have no idea if you're actually learning Japanese yourself or not and whether it would do any good to actually try to explain the construction or not, since all you seem to want is a four or five word phrase you can universally plug in whenever you encounter it. You seem to have garnered nothing more than that from your efforts to look it up (not "learn" it) elsewhere.

Do you understand that the な is the copula (like だ)? What do you do when you encounter "verb+のだ (or んだ) elsewhere? Just figure its a habit of speech and keep on trucking to the next crystal tiara or some other kewl bit?
 
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So, if it's this hard for you to post something from an iPhone screen, why did you even bother to "bash" me?

I don't have to prove you anything, and I just joined this forum for... almost 2 days? But lemme tell you something, just because I don't like to leave misunderstood things: I studied 日本語 for almost 1 year in 2008 with a 先生 who have Japanese Teaching Major in one of the best universities from my country. And, waaaaay before that, I already had a good japanese vocabulary from watching anime and, above all, listen to J-Rock songs and reading detailed songs translations with a LOT of notes.
After my one year of course (basically 日本語 level 1 and 2, studying with the well know みんなの日本語), I've never lost my interest in Japanese culture and language, and my vocabulary never stopped to grow in those years.
Maybe you think I'm some kind of "otaku" weeaboo herp-derp who faps to moeshit, but in reality, I hate this kind of stuff and I hardly watch anime, to tell you the truth. My main interest is in music, not only "J-Rock" bands (which I hardly listen to this day, as well), but rock in general. Still, there will be always a tiny, small quantity, of japanese bands that I will probably love til I die, and I'm not ashamed to say that.

So, back to the matter, it's quite obvious that I know how the japanese language works, what is copulas and particles, the basic of kanjis, radicals and order of strokes, in which for me, who didn't actually learned almost none in levels 1 and 2, at least I know how to search and study them.

When I said "this series have kind of repetitive dialogues and expressions, once you "master it", it's not that hard to reproduce/emulate it" is because this is true. There is a lot of dialogues that are repeated over and over by different characters along the episodes, making a pattern to translate some lines, words and expressions. But even to do this, you have to know at least a a bit of Japanese! I'm not fluent in 日本語, but I'm really, really away from being an absolute beginner.

Do you know how many hours I've spend searching and studing 日本語 related topics to make a good QC? No, you don't. Did you ever tried to do something like this for anything you like? It doesn't need to be necessary anime (which I guess you dislike), neither something related to a language. I mean doing something with passion for the things that have a meaning for you.

Judging by your flag, I don't know if you are a japanese native, or if you just live in Japan, but this is the kind of attitude that gives a community a bad name. When I made my account, I was happy to read this in the e-mail which I received from here: The premise of JREF is that we can, working together, build an online community that will help all of us.

At least, another people here before you proved me those things above. There is a huge difference between constructive criticism and bashing someone, or wrongly judging someone you don't even know. If you don't like anime, I'm ok with that. Everyone has different tastes and motivations. But I don't think it's right to be mean and disrespectful to someone just because you didn't empathize with a person.

Probably, at this point, you are tired of reading all of this in your shiny iPhone screen. But, to tell the last, just to prove how much I have a deep respect to 日本語, as I told before, half of the Saint Seiya series are translated. If things are like this, why should I even bother to revise from the episode 1? Because, even for my level of understanding in 日本語, I could notice a lot of flaws the current translation.

Is it a "goofy cartoon"? For some it could be, but there is a LOT of people who, even with all flaws that this series have, love Saint Seiya from the bottom of their hearts. (Plus, if you really live in Japan, maybe you heard something about the 車田 正美 40th career anniversary, and the new 聖闘士星矢 movie which is premiering... tomorrow? So yes, there is a lot of people who cares about this.)

I always try to be polite to everyone, unless someone is disrespectful to me. A doubt is a doubt, it doesn't matter if it's a trivial doubt, or a difficult one. Even the majored ones with higher degrees in anything could have basic doubts, mostly for being too ashamed to ask. The real problem is to keep a doubt forever, and even making mistakes because of this. Even worse when they're mistakes related to basic stuff.

Tl;dr: If you dislike or hate something, don't be mean to someone just because you don't share their tastes. You will save the precious minutes of your life. Why don't you just post in the threads you sympathize? If you cannot help, well...


Back to the subject of this thread, なのだ, to anyone who can gently lend me a hand... As I said, yes, I've searched for なのだ, and besides the "emphasis" thing that I know, and the jisho meaning, most of the sites explain it as something you use to "to express utter happiness, sadness, confusion, or just to be random", and to look "cute". But mostly I find meanings related to a "happy" context, and no concrete possibilities of translation.

Since I heard なのだ at the end of some serious sentences, about serious stuff, how could I express this in the most natural way in english? This isn't a case of mannerisms/quirks, where were talking about a character who always says なのだ in the end of the sentences. In those cases, mostly all subtitles always ignore なのだ and never translate it.

Thanks in advance!

Edit: And if some are questioning why I didn't finish my 日本語 studies yet, it is because I have another priorities in my life. This doesn't mean for any second that I lost my interest in Japanese language and Japanese culture. I will finish my the course one day, when I want it, and not to translate an anime. Something which would sounds dull and meaningless.
If I volunteered to the project which I said is because I think this is something that isn't beyond my knowledge, thus being it totally possible for me.
Plus, I'm obviously learning a LOT of things while revising 聖闘士星矢, so yes, you can both revise an anime AND study 日本語.
 
なのだ

I never knew it was possible to fly off on so many tangents at once. When you get done being offended and trying to impress us with your 長文 about studying 日本語 with a 先生 for 一年弱 back in 2008年 maybe you can 改めて読む my 投稿 and 答える the 質問 that I 聞いた.

To answer your question, yes, I have translated a novel before. So what?
 
Thank you for nothing. I wasn't thinking about posting in this thread anymore, but just to leave this here if someone have the same doubt I did.

meaning - What connotation does なんだ add? - Japanese Language Stack Exchange Best explanation ever
grammar - のだから vs のだ (んだから vs んだ) - Japanese Language Stack Exchange
Both from... 2011?
なのだ - WordReference Forums from 2011 as well.

Do you understand that the な is the copula (like だ)?

It wasn't clear to me and with the explanation above in the wordreference, now I understand how it works. As you see, the guy at the wordreference thread had the same doubt as me, but he didn't got the answer he looked for immediately. For quite a simple thing, people took awhile to answer him.
But the true answer/explanation I was looking for I found in the first two links above, and the people who answered that didn't treat the なのだ subject as something "ooh, look! how obvious it is!" or something trivial. Because it's something not so obvious in english, to mark a reason for something.

And for someone talking about "tangents", you did quite of some, wasting your time to even look on my other threads before answering in this one, just to come with a judgement and an intention to bash me. Maybe it isn't so hard to play the "internet tough guy" through an iPhone screen.

At least, I hope you know what/who BUCK-TICK and BOOWY are, or else you don't even deserve to live in 群馬県.

Nice to meet you.
 
なのだ

So you finally did what I suggested in the first place? Good. Now, do you have any questions? Do you understand the use after verbs?

By the way, I never said it was obvious or insulted you. I was amazed you're a half-dozen years into learning Japanese and two years into a translation project and are just now wondering about such a common construction. If you're so hypersensitive about it, that's your problem, but don't go twisting it into my "bashing" you.

No, I don't care who BUCK-TICK or BOOWY are. If that is a requirement for residency in Gunma then I certainly won't be the only person kicked out of the prefecture (nor will they all be foreigners). Who the hell are you to decide where I "deserve" to live? The people of Gunma got together and appointed you or something? I live in Gunma (probably since before you were a gleam in your Daddy's eye), work in Gunma, my kids were born and raised to adulthood in Gunma, I'll die in Gunma and my bones will be buried in Gunma. You think because you know some bands you get to tell me where I may live my life?

Here's a news flash for ya, sport, Japan isn't just some Far East fantasy factory that exists to churn out pop culture escapist fantasy cartoons and comic books to feed the needs of foreign kids who engage in cultural misappropriation to mask the fact they're too socially awkward or inept to get along in their own societies. It's a real country full of real people doing pretty much all of the same things that mark the wonders and mundanity of the human experience in every country, every culture, and every era. We don't all sit over here with our noses buried in comic books or our eyes glued to cartoons and we certainly aren't asinine enough to deliver ourselves of opinions regarding where others "deserve" to live based on what bands they're into.
 
Sorry to tell you, but this isn't any flash news for me.
And you really didn't read what I wrote very well. To make clear, have I ever said that I don't care much about anime in general? Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not the tipical weeaboo you are used to deal with. And neither I am young so much as you think as I could be. And age doesn't tell about the value or maturity of a person.

I just think it's a shame to live on Gunma-ken and not knowing the some of the oldest japanese rock bands in which made history in the country you're current living on. Not that this means something for you, as you stated.

Well, since my doubt about this question is solved, I think there is no point to continue this meaningless discussion anymore. Which would only lead to a ridiculous discussion not even related to this board objective.
 
And I think its sad you think current pop culture is the be-all and end-all of deciding where I get to live. That's the most juvenile and asinine thing I've read in a long while. Are those two bands somehow especially connected to Gunma? My favorite Japanese singer is Hamako Watanabe. What prefecture should I be living in based on that?
 
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