”I hope" usage question

Hey everyone. Found this forum recently, and I have to say it's a gem. :3 This is my first post here.

So, building on this thread:

"I hope" Grammar Point | Japan Forum

I want to be able to say something like, "I hope I was able to answer your question." or "I hope you went to the right place." I'm having a hard time relating it to the above thread and figuring out where to put the past tense-ness in the sentence.

Help? I appreciate all examples and explanations. ^^

You can use the ませように・ませんように sentence structure. Note this is different from みたい ( when saying A is like B)

優しい人と結婚できますように - I hope I can get married to a nice person

どうか大きい地震が起きませんように - I hope there wont be any large earthsquakes

For some reason this sentence structure uses どうか or どうぞ alot. Hopefully someone more knowledgable can clarify this though.

However for the two questions you are asking I'm not sure how to make the sentences as I cant write in Japanese very well.

どうか and どうぞ are similar in meaning in this sense:

どう‐か
［副］
１ 心から丁重に頼み込む気持ちを表す。どうぞ。なにとぞ。「頼むから―見逃してくれ」
どうかの意味 - 国語辞書 - goo辞書
http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/jn2/155146/m0u/どうか/

Chibbs said:

I want to be able to say something like, "I hope I was able to answer your question." or "I hope you went to the right place." I'm having a hard time relating it to the above thread and figuring out where to put the past tense-ness in the sentence

Click to expand...

http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/jn2/155146/m0u/どうか/
Tense goes before と. 答えになったといいのですが is my shot at "I hope I was able to answer your question." Sometimes I just feel like a literal translation doesn't work, so I change it up, even when one might work. Anyway... "I hope you went to the right place" -- 正しい所へ行けたらいいですね is a possibility.

Also, I found this explanation at Project 411.

5. I hope…. の日本語は？
「私たちは多くのことを学び、学生が自分自身を楽しんだことを願っています。」
「私たち」はないほうが自然です。「学生」というのは相手の高校生のみなさんのことですね。「学生」だけだ と上から目線になりますので、「学生さん」のように表現します。それから、「願う」というのは、これから先 のことを言うことが多いので、すでに終わったことにはあまり使いません。「〜といい」を使った文はどうでし ょうか。
「このプロジェクトの参加者全員が多くのことを学び、楽しい時間を過ごすことができたといいで すね。」

The learner is trying to say that she hopes all the students (a group she belongs to) learn lots of things and have fun. Her effort is 「私たちは多くのことを学び、学生が自分自身を楽しんだことを願っています。」 The teacher says not to use 私たち, and 学生 is impolite, and should be 学生さん. Then she says that 願う is used for things that are going to happen in the future, not things that have already happened, so she suggests using ～といい. The final revised sentence is 「このプロジェクトの参加者全員が多くのことを学び、楽しい時間を過ごすことができたといいで すね。」 It seems in Japanese, the potential form is used often for these types of situations. For instance, it's 楽しい時間を過ごせたらいい, not 楽しい時間を過ごしたらいい. Also, ～たらいい is another possibility.

I would say 質問に答えられていればいいんですが。 or 答えになっていればいいんですが。 for the first example.

As for the second one, I would rephrase it 行ったのが正しい場所だといいですね。 or 行った場所が合ってるといいですね。.

できたといいですね sounds odd. It should be something like できていたらいいですね.

This is awesome everyone. Thanks a lot!

Alright, now that I've had some time to nit-pick at everyone's sentences, I have another question.

Out of ～ば、 ～と、～たら from what I learned, the only one that signifies past tense is ～たら. So in this situation, using ～たら makes the most sense to me. And thinking with my English-speaking brain, I see a distinct difference in meaning between hoping something has happened the way you want and hoping something will happen the way you want. But from what Toritoribe and Glenn say, it seems like ～ば and ～と is more normal, or even preferred, even for the past tense. Does the past tense aspect of it even matter in Japanese?

～たら doesn't signify past; it's sometimes called the 'past conditional' because it -looks- like the past tense conjugation + ら , but it's terribly misleading nomenclature.

Roughly, たら is more casual spoken speech, えば is more formal spoken speech and と is more bookish, -but also-, と more describes natural or inevitable consequences, たら describes hypothetical situations, and えば describes desirability or undesirability of outcome... -but- any of them can be used in contradiction to any of those guidelines, and sometimes 'natural speech' is totally at odds with those guidelines.
Basically, each of the conditionals has a bunch of properties and tendencies that can reinforce or conflict. The only way to really know which one(s) are acceptable or natural is to have seen and heard many similar sentences before, although perhaps someone far smarter than I could write out a definitive ruleset for when to use each.

Another point is 質問に答えられていればいいんですが。 / 答えになっていればいいんですが。 vs 質問に答えられればいいんですが。 / 答えになればいいんですが。.

As Chris-san explained, the conditional ～たら doesn't refer to the past tense. In fact, 質問に答えられたらいいんですが。 means "I wish I were able to answer your question." i.e., "(Sorry, but) I can't answer your question."

SomeCallMeChris said:

Basically, each of the conditionals has a bunch of properties and tendencies that can reinforce or conflict. The only way to really know which one(s) are acceptable or natural is to have seen and heard many similar sentences before, although perhaps someone far smarter than I could write out a definitive ruleset for when to use each.

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Well, maybe not smarter, but with more extensive knowledge or having studied more. There's this abstract to a paper I can't access that's somewhat related:

Testing the validity of linguistic description against the intuition of native speakers:
The case of Japanese conditionals
Harry Solvang and Naoko Maeda

This paper presents a study of native speaker intuitions regarding the choice of conditional
markers in Japanese in regard to Modal Constraint Approach, whose central claim is that the
choice of the four conditional markers to, tara, ba and nara is governed by the modal contents of
the consequent clause. This study reports the outcome of a computer-based experimental study
on conditionals, where the validity of the current view of modal constraints is being tested
against the judgment of native Japanese speakers from the Kanto district. Our analysis indicates
the current view is in accord with native speakers" intuition in the case of tara and to, but it
definitely needs to be revised in the case of ba. Specifically, against the predictions of the Modal
Constraint Approach we found that even expressions of command, request and prohibition were
regarded as fairly acceptable in a number of cases, suggesting that native intuition is influenced
by a series of factors that come into play with different level of influence on each speaker.​

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