Third Newspaper Translation

[Zizka]

Ok so:
集まらない is the inflected form of the verb 集まる. According to my dictionary it means "to gather, to assemble". But otherwise no, there's no means or potential. It's just a godan verb in the non-past negative. In my dictionary, the adverb なかなか means 'by no means, not readily', that's why I put the means thing there.

"The people who work selling things do not readily gather..."

As for ため I thought it meant "for the benefit". The whole definition says "a noun that indicates a benefit, a purpose, a reason or a cause'. It indicates a cause or a reason.

 

[SomeCallMeChris]

In my dictionary, the adverb なかなか means 'by no means, not readily',

Oh. That's a fixed expression in English meaning "there's no chance" or similar. It also shouldn't be taken literally here. なかなかＶneg indicates difficulty, scarcity, or the like. If you actually wanted to say V doesn't happen/won't happen, you would just say Vneg. Instead with なかなか you're saying V is unlikely, uncommon or difficult.

"The people who work selling things do not readily gather..."

This is not quite right. That would be 物を売る仕事をする人がなかなか集まらない
You still haven't identified what に is doing.

 

[Zizka]

物を売る仕事になかなか人が集まらないため、店で働く人が集まるように、休みを多くしました。
Yes, there are seven different usages for に in the dictionary.
1: indicates a point in time. ✖︎ There's no time here.
2: an indirect object marker ✖︎ No one is receiving anything.
3: indicates an agent or a source ✖︎ It's usually used in the passive and there's no passive here.
4: indicates the surface of where something takes place ✖︎ Obviously.
5: a particle which indicates purpose ✖︎ No this construction comes after a verb masu.
6: indicates the location where something exists. ○ It could be this one? The people at work selling things? I'm not sure though.
7: a particle which indicates a place towards something moves ✖︎

 

[SomeCallMeChris]

I'm not too sure about that list. Those definitions seem overly specific for such a short list, and some major uses of に are missing.

The people at work selling things?

The people aren't described as selling things. The work is described as selling things.
That usage entry seems to be referring to テーブルの上に新聞ががあります kind of 'exist'. That's not this.


The key thing here is that に links 物を売る仕事 as an object of 集まる.

What kind of object(s) does 集まる mark with に?

• 子供たちは校庭に集まった
• The children gathered on the playground.

goo

NTTドコモが運営するポータルサイト「goo」。今話題のニュースやドコモのキャンペーン、サービス紹介などお役立ちコンテンツを展開しています。

dictionary.goo.ne.jp

A destination/location.

7: a particle which indicates a place towards something moves

The people don't easily gather.

Where don't they easily gather?

物を売る仕事になかなか人が集まらないために

At the work of selling things.

"People don't easily come together to the work of selling things." ⇒ "They're having trouble getting enough people to come to work in the shops."

This is not an easy part to understand, I know. I had to confirm it against the original text from the full article, which is much more straightforward,
「 人手不足の中で従業員を確保するために 」

However, verbs have usages, particles very often need to be understood in their relationship to the verb.

(edit: I'm not sure the clause isn't ambiguous. I mean, 人 isn't described as an employee, but it's also not described as a potential recruit. I don't see why it can't mean just as easily "They're having trouble getting employees to come to work" as what it is apparently meant to mean, "They're having trouble getting new employees to join the workforce").

 

[Zizka]

Hmm... the seven definitions are from 'A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar'. It's not too reassuring if some important ones are missing. Maybe they're in the intermediate dictionary, that's a possibility... but no, there is none with only に as a particle.

The key thing here is that に links 物を売る仕事 as an object of 集まる.

Do you think it's in the ADoBJG? Because I'd like to read about it.

"People don't easily come together to the work of selling things." ⇒ "They're having trouble getting enough people to come to work in the shops."

集まる seems like such an odd choice for the verb. Maybe it's a colloquial thing where in Japan people gather for work as a synonym for show up at work.

 

[Toritoribe]

集まる seems like such an odd choice for the verb.

You shouldn't misunderstand the point. 集まる is not an odd choice at all. It's a very common expression in Japanese. If you feel it's odd, then the problem is in the way of your translating/interpreting, not in the Japanese sentence.

 

[SomeCallMeChris]

Hmm... the seven definitions are from 'A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar'. It's not too reassuring if some important ones are missing. Maybe they're in the intermediate dictionary, that's a possibility... but no, there is none with only に as a particle.

Some of the important uses are listed other than as entries of 'ni' ; the entries for まえに、までに、ことにする、ことになる、ように、かわりに、etc, etc.

I don't think the use as 'and' is covered in ADoBJG, it might be covered in Intermediate or Advanced.

Do you think it's in the ADoBJG? Because I'd like to read about it.

As a general principle, it just touches on the topic a couple times in "Characteristics of Japanese Grammar" and includes major uses of に in the universal sentence diagram on page 20, but it doesn't really explain it. As a specific case, if you consider 集まる a verb of motion, then maybe ni(7), but that seems a bit of a stretch.

ADoBJG goes in-depth on specific grammars, but what I'm talking about here is a general principle. This sort of thing is usually taught early on in textbooks, but anyway, a Japanese sentence for a transitive verb generally looks like,

subject は・が direct object を other object に verb
僕は 紅茶を 茶わんに 入りました
彼は 手紙を 彼女に 届けました

Intransitive verbs don't take a direct object, by definition, and not all transitive verbs take a second object... but when they do, they use に to do so.
Of course some intransitive verbs also take a に-object with similar meaning, although you can't call it a 'second object' or 'other object' in that case.

に is sometimes called an "indirect object marker", although the things it marks don't include only recipients, but all sorts of things that are objects of prepositions in English. That's why に is said to translate as on/at/to/from/for/in, etc., because it marks nearly all the objects marked by English prepositions.

What exactly you would call the things that に marks in English depends no the verb. But, IMO, the uses of 'indirect object', 'action on a surface', 'place something moves towards', etc, are all the same thing in Japanese: the second object of the verb is marked by に.

This is fundamentally different from other uses like time, conversion to adverb, or the agent in a passive conjugation.

 

[Zizka]

A destination/location.

I've been reading the definitions again and I think it's just に 6th. The one I was saying was:

6: indicates the location where something exists. ○

With possible translations of in, at and on. It's the same as the example you've given: 子供たちは校庭に集まった. I'll translate the rest of the sentence, maybe it'll help.

「店で働く人が集まるように、休みを多くしました。」
集まるように
I think I get it, the ように tipped me off as it can be translated as "so that".
"In order for (so that) the working people to meet at the store, they took many days off."

 

[Zizka]

Oops we posted at the same time!

 

[SomeCallMeChris]

「店で働く人が集まるように、休みを多くしました。」
集まるように
I think I get it, the ように tipped me off as it can be translated as "so that".
"In order for (so that) the working people to meet at the store, they took many days off."

That.... is plausible... if it were in isolation, and based just on the grammar in front of you. Japanese, however, is a very context-sensitive language.

Given the meaning of the first half, do you think 'for the working people to meet at the store' makes sense?
Didn't we determine in the first sentence that there are two specific days off being added?

 

[Zizka]

No, I guess it doesn't.

I honestly still don't understand:
"People don't easily come together to the work of selling things." ⇒ "They're having trouble getting enough people to come to work in the shops."

I would say: "People don't come to work or have trouble showing up at work but I certainly wouldn't say: "They had to close because people weren't coming together at work".

In:
労働者たちはくつろげる酒場に集まることが好きである。
The workers like to gather in a pub where they can let their hair down.

I understand why you'd come together to relax, it makes sense to use that verb. To me, it doesn't make sense in the context of the article. I just don't see it.

 

[SomeCallMeChris]

Hmm. So this is different from the pub. 仕事 has a place where it is done, but it isn't a place.

So, 仕事に集まる is, I believe, more like 協議に集まる -- to meet in conference.

There is a 仕事場 and a 協議室 but that's not what's being talked about. People are getting together around an activity, not a place.

Now, as for why exactly it means new people are joining the workforce I'm not quite so clear on...

However, the transitive equivalent of 集まる is 集める, and 集める is used all the time to talk about recruiting people to a company, cause, or club.

E.g.,
在郷軍人を呼び出して軍隊に集める
to call a reserved soldier into active duty

So I think it is simply the intransitive equivalent of that.

I'm not used to seeing this usage in the intransitive, but it's consistent with the meaning of the full article and with transitive/intransitive pairs in general, so that's my best guess on it.

 

[bentenmusume]

I understand why you'd come together to relax, it makes sense to use that verb. To me, it doesn't make sense in the context of the article. I just don't see it.

Like Toritoribeさん said above, you should learn to stop thinking of Japanese words strictly in terms of their English definitions. Just because 集まる can have the meaning of "come together" and you wouldn't use the specific phrase "come together" in English to describe a workforce, it doesn't mean that 集まる can't have that nuance in Japanese. The Japanese word 集まる can cover a wide range of meanings of people coming together for a particular purpose. There's nothing unusual about using it here at all, as Toritoribeさん explained.

I would say: "People don't come to work or have trouble showing up at work but I certainly wouldn't say: "They had to close because people weren't coming together at work".

How you (not you specifically, any English speaker) would express something in English really has no bearing on what is the most intuitive way to express the same thought in Japanese. You have to learn to interpret and parse Japanese grammar, sentence structure, and vocabulary for what it is rather than thinking in terms of "what would make sense in English."

That said, this is something of an offhand comment, but I'm personally not a fan of NHK Easy News. While the Japanese is, of course, grammatical (it's written/edited by native Japanese speakers, after all), I often feel like the efforts to "simplify" the language result in strained/stilted expressions that wouldn't typically be how native speakers would choose to express these things, and can somewhat obscure the intended meaning.

I tracked down the original (non-"easy") article, and it does a much better job of providing the underlying context behind the sentence:

これまで、天神地下街の休館日は、年間で元日だけでしたが、人手不足の中で従業員を確保するためには働き方改革を推進する必要があるとして、比較的来客の少ない今月と８月のいずれも18日を新たに休館日にしました。

The above sentence (you can try to translate it if you want) along with the rest of the article makes it clear that it's not that they're closing simply because they're understaffed, but rather that this is part of a general effort to attract more people to the workforce by improving working conditions (e.g. by increasing vacation days).

 

[Zizka]

What would you recommend an alternative for something not too hard to read?

How you (not you specifically, any English speaker) would express something in English really has no bearing on what is the most intuitive way to express the same thought in Japanese. You have to learn to interpret and parse Japanese grammar, sentence structure, and vocabulary for what it is rather than thinking in terms of "what would make sense in English."

Well, I don't see how I can conceptually understand the language without referring to the languages I already know unless I pick it up from experience. If I already understood how 集まる works from a Japanese standpoint, I wouldn't be trying to learn it in the first place if that makes sense, I'm not sure if I'm being clear. In other words, unless I learn through exposure and learn the subtleties without consciously thinking about it, I can only relate to the languages I already know.

You are saying I should not think about it in English but what's the alternative? How can I think in Japanese if Japanese is the language I'm trying to learn.

I'm open to your suggestions but it's one thing to not do something, it's another to find an alternative. If I stop referring in English, what do you think I should do? Disregard the English translation and focus on the contextual use of 集まる instead?

 

[bentenmusume]

There's nothing wrong with using English as a basis for your understanding. Of course you have to start somewhere. But I'm saying that you have to train yourself to think in the abstract and understand the Japanese word on its own terms.

If you can think of understand 集まる in terms of referring to people coming together for a particular purpose, then it shouldn't seem particularly strange that it can be used in the context of talking about a workforce. Even if you haven't seen the word used in this particular context before, you can make a mental note, "Aha. It can also mean to come together in this sense."

If you strictly associate it with the specific English phrase "come together" and assume the English and Japanese are 100% equivalent, then it leads to you into the trap of thinking as you did above, where it somehow doesn't make sense because (in English) you might talk about people "coming together" to relax at a pub, but not "coming together" at a place of employment.

It's not about completely eliminating "interference" from your original language. Though that's the eventual goal, as you correctly point out it's not realistic to expect that to happen right away in the early stages of learning. In the meantime, what you can do is adopt a more flexible mindset that will allow you to internalize the language on its own terms. Then, as you get more and more exposure (and learn more and more Japanese), you'll gradually and eventually be able to train yourself to "think in Japanese."

(edited for clarity)

 

[bentenmusume]

Also, I just realized that I didn't answer your question about reading material. It's a bit hard to say, because obviously by definition any material produced for native speakers is not produced with beginning language learners in mind.

You may want to search around on the internet for Japanese graded readers, as these are often recommended. The Bonjinsha Basic Kanji Book and Kodansha Kanji in Context series also contain a lot of reading material (for the purpose of learning vocab and kanji in context).

When I was in the early-intermediate stage of learning, I threw myself right in the deep end and would play Japanese video games (mostly RPGs and visual novel-type games like 逆転裁判) and read short stories by 村上春樹, 筒井康隆, and the like. On the whole, I was more interested in exposing myself to "authentic" Japanese than in seeking things written for my level.

There's no one perfect approach, though. I don't want to single-handedly steer you away from NHK Easy if you've been enjoying it and feel like you're getting something out of it. Many learners do find it to be a valuable site. I'm just (personally) not a big fan for the reasons stated above.

 

[SomeCallMeChris]

What would you recommend an alternative for something not too hard to read?

If you look for graded readers, there are definitely some out there that are pure Japanese and some that are English parallel text. It's possible there are some that are parallel text in your native language.

The easiest light novel I've read is くま クマ 熊 ベアー ; Difficult kanji are often removed or given furigana in the conversion from web-novel to light-novel, among other editing changes, so I can't guarantee that it's equally easy, but the web novel is available. The published version should be available as an e-book on all your favorite platforms.

くまクマ熊ベアー

R15 残酷な描写あり 異世界転移 ほのぼの 女主人公 チート ファンタジー 異世界 くま 召喚獣はクマ 家はクマハウス 魔法はクマが最強 もふもふ 着ぐるみ 書籍化 コミカライズ アニメ化

ncode.syosetu.com

よつばと！ is the easiest manga I've ever read. That doesn't have a (legally) free version, unfortunately, so I don't have anything I can link you.

Erin's Challenge has video skits where you can follow the subtitles, but also script and manga versions where you can just read or read-along with the audio.
The basic skits are as easy as authentic dialogue gets, at least in written form. It may be a challenge to your listening skills as aside from the title character they speak naturally. (The actress who plays Erin is obviously fluent, but she's playing an exchange student so she talks very slowly to indicate that.)

Erin's Challenge! I can speak Japanese. | The Japan Foundation (online audio-visual course)

Written by teachers as learning exercises, these essays span a range of difficulties but the easiest of them are similar in difficulty to the dialogues of a first-year textbook.

Japanese culture - Learn Japanese Online - JOI Teachers blog (Essay style blogs from Japanese teachers)


Fairy tales have some antiquated and quirky narrative language, but are by and large not very difficult.

福娘童話集 -世界と日本の童話・昔話集- (福娘童話集 - collected folk & fairy tales)

Most of Aozora will be pretty tough going, but if you have a favorite classic that is old enough to be out of copyright (The Little Prince, Alice in Wonderland, etc) it's probably been translated into Japanese.

青空文庫 Aozora Bunko (青空文庫 -- public domain works)

 

[Zizka]

Wow, great posts!
The reason why I picked NHK is because I like reading the newspaper in general. I prefer it over fiction any day. Not that there's anything wrong with fiction, I just prefer reading about current events personally.

This being said, I'll bookmark this thread to refer to it in order to have more reading material available.

I could expose myself to non-beginner material but I do see some potential caveats namely missing furigana which would make looking up kanjis time consuming and being exposed to more advanced gramma without having mastered the fondations first. Anyhow, I'll finish this article first since I've started it and will see what I'll do next. Another thing I was considering was writing a daily diary in Japanese so that I can start producing the language as opposed to simply reading it.

Let's try again:
物を売る仕事になかなか人が集まらないため、店で働く人が集まるように、休みを多くしました。
Now regarding 「ため」is there a way for me to determine whether it means "a benefit, a purpose, a cause or a reason"? I use the context but is there a way to facilitate the task? Like for とても and すこく where the they more or less mean the same thing but one is more used in negative contexts?

 

[Zizka]

I'm going to try to answer my own question.
So ため(に) is a noun. While in English we'd use conjunctional phrases (for the account of, for the benefit of, for the sake of) in Japanese, we just use ため. Sometimes the にparticle is optional sometimes it's necessary.

私は日本のことを知るために日本へ行きます。
In this sentence, what comes before ため is attributive to ため. The coloured part is the purpose of the sentence, in this case "to learn about Japan". What comes after ため is what is done to achieve the objective before ため.

If we go back to the sentence that I'm having trouble with:
物を売る仕事になかなか人が集まらないため、店で働く人が集まるように、休みを多くしました.
I'd like to apply the same logic in this sentence but it doesn't seem to work since the verb is in the negative. It wouldn't make sense to say: "in order not to meet...".

Regarding なかなか it's the adverb as there is no な and also because the adverbial form is usually written in the negative. In the sentence I'm studying, なかなか modifies the verb 集まらない meaning there's almost no chance to meet.

At the work of selling things, people hardly meet, like was previously said before. Still, the question remains, what is the purpose of ため.

Let's see if it is another meaning of ため.
今年は雪があまり降らないためにスキーができない。
This sentence is more similar to the sentence from the newspaper as the first clause is negative in both cases.
So in this case, the meaning is more akin to "because of".

So, because at the work of selling things people hardly meet... then the explanation and main clause would come after ため.

"Because the people at the work of selling place hardly meet, in order for the people at the store to meet (ように), they take a lot of days off.

物を売る仕事になかなか人が集まらないため、店で働く人が集まるように、休みを多くしました。
Now to determine what is the subject of the last verb, 多くしました. 休み is the direct object of 'to do a lot'. To do a lot of rest or to say it differently, to take a lot of days off.

"-but rather that this is part of a general effort to attract more people to the workforce by improving working conditions"
Now the above was inferred by reading the original piece.

So the people working at the stores are taking days off in order to improve the workforce, so make it that more people 集まる at work.

 

[Zizka]

１８日が休みだと知らないで買い物に来た女性は、全部の店が閉まっているのを見て驚いていました。
Suspecting 「だと」was something new to me, I googled it and as it turns out I should parse this as だ (copula) and the と (if) particle.

Then there's 知らない in the informal negative of the verb "to know" followed by 買い物, shopping.

After that there's 女性, woman followed by the topic marker, は. The sentence is talking about the women. Not just the women, chances are what precedes women is the modifier of women. Let's think about that:
来た女性: the woman who came.
買い物に来た女性: the women who came shopping
The challenge here is parsing the text properly since there's a が right at the beginning of the sentence after 18日. I would risk that the first clause would be 18日が休みだと followed by the rest of the sentence all the way to the 、. If the 18th is off, the women who came shopping that didn't know maybe?

 

[SomeCallMeChris]

So in this case, the meaning is more akin to "because of".

Yes. ため can express cause or reason, not only purpose.

"Because the people at the work of selling place hardly meet, in order for the people at the store to meet (ように), they take a lot of days off.

No. Nowhere does it say the "place" of work or "at the store". It's not 店に集まる, it's 仕事に集まる.

I wouldn't call 3 days a year off "a lot" ... in any case, 「多くする」 and 「多くなる」 both mean "to increase". The result of that increase doesn't have to be 多い.

So the people working at the stores are taking days off in order to improve the workforce, so make it that more people 集まる at work.

I'm not quite sure how you got here from what you already said, but in any case, it's not saying that "the people working at the stores are taking days off".

休み has to be understood in the context of the article. The previous sentences already describe this 休み.

Suspecting 「だと」was something new to me, I googled it and as it turns out I should parse this as だ (copula) and the と (if) particle.

That's a quoting と.

the women

Well, technically I suppose it could have been a group, this part is talking about a 女性 with very specific characteristics. Grammatically it's ambiguous, but I certainly feel like this is taken from an interview with an individual woman.


Yes, you understand the が right. 18日が休みだ could be its own sentence and means "The 18th is a day off".

 

[Zizka]

全部の店が閉まっているのを見て驚いていました。
全部の店: all of the stores
が: subject
閉まっている: present progressive 閉める, "to close"
の: nominaliser of 閉まっている.
を: direct object of 見て.
驚い: おどろいたことに: there are no sample sentences on Jisho about this one. It's an adverb which means "surprisingly".

I think it means that the women who went shopping and didn't know the stores were closing were surprised to see the see all of the stores closing.

 

[Zizka]

I'm not quite sure how you got here from

I was trying to convey this:

it's not that they're closing simply because they're understaffed, but rather that this is part of a general effort to attract more people to the workforce by improving working conditions (e.g. by increasing vacation days).

 

[Zizka]

Well, technically I suppose it could have been a group, this part is talking about a 女性 with very specific characteristics. Grammatically it's ambiguous, but I certainly feel like this is taken from an interview with an individual woman.

That very well could be. There's a video linked with the article and a surprised woman is being interviewed.

I wouldn't call 3 days a year off "a lot" ... in any case, 「多くする」 and 「多くなる」 both mean "to increase". The result of that increase doesn't have to be 多い.

Oh I didn't know that! I was wondering what it meant here, thanks for teaching me. To increase then.

No. Nowhere does it say the "place" of work or "at the store". It's not 店に集まる, it's 仕事に集まる.

People are getting together around an activity, not a place.

So the people are getting together around work.

However, the transitive equivalent of 集まる is 集める, and 集める is used all the time to talk about recruiting people to a company, cause, or club.

It has to be the intransitive equivalent yes, because it's written 「 集まらない 」.

"People don't easily come together to the work of selling things." ⇒ "They're having trouble getting enough people to come to work in the shops."

The above sentence (you can try to translate it if you want) along with the rest of the article makes it clear that it's not that they're closing simply because they're understaffed, but rather that this is part of a general effort to attract more people to the workforce by improving working conditions (e.g. by increasing vacation days).

So which one is it?

 

[bentenmusume]

The two statements you have bolded are not mutually exclusive.

They're having trouble attracting people to the workforce, so they're adding holidays to improve the work environment and make these jobs more (generally) attractive. This is different from saying they literally are closing down because there is an acute shortage of workers that prevents them from opening the stores on those days.

(This is actually quite logical if you think about it. If have always been open 364 days a year, it doesn't stand to reason that suddenly they have a worker shortage that somehow allows them to stay open exactly 362 days a year, but no more than that.)

My local 7-11 convenience store recently made the decision (or rather, is experimenting with a company-wide provision that allows some stores to do this; I don't imagine it was a unilateral decision) to close from 2am to 5am every day rather than being open 24 hours like most コンビニ. This was done for a similar reason (as part of 働き方改革, as it's often referred to like in the "full" article). It's not that they suddenly, literally do not have the staff to keep the store open those hours, but that they're trying to make improvements to avoid worker shortages in the future.