から

eeky · 13 Dec 2015

Hi,

この間の金曜日の欠勤を弁解できるからね。

What is the purpose of から in this sentence?

Is this a question? If so, how do you tell?

lanthas · 13 Dec 2015

What's the preceding sentence, is it related?

Mike Cash · 13 Dec 2015

eeky said:
Hi,

この間の金曜日の欠勤を弁解できるからね。

What is the purpose of から in this sentence?

Is this a question? If so, how do you tell?

This is analogous to the "wait, I can explain everything" we use to try to forestall someone getting mad at us before launching into the actual explanation.

この間の金曜日の欠勤を弁解できるから {怒らずに聞いていて} ね

This kind of construction/usage, where one is left to infer what comes after から, is quite common.

Toritoribe · 13 Dec 2015

eeky said:
Hi,

この間の金曜日の欠勤を弁解できるからね。

What is the purpose of から in this sentence?

Is this a question? If so, how do you tell?

It's not a question. The given translation is wrong, as is often the case with the Tanaka Corpus. The translation is for この間の金曜日の欠勤を弁解できるかね。.

この間の金曜日の欠勤を弁解できるからね。
Can you account for your absence last Friday? - Tanaka Corpus

「欠勤」に関連した英語例文の一覧 - Weblio英語例文検索

eeky · 13 Dec 2015

lanthas said:
What's the preceding sentence, is it related?

There is no preceding sentence given; it is an isolated example sentence from a huge database of examples (not all of which are correct, as Toritoribe has highlighted).

Mike Cash · 13 Dec 2015

eeky said:
There is no preceding sentence given; it is an isolated example sentence from a huge database of examples (not all of which are correct, as Toritoribe has highlighted).

But it certainly does provide a very illustrative example of what a difference in meaning the presence or absence of a single kana can make, doesn't it?

WonkoTheSane · 13 Dec 2015

Toritoribe said:
It's not a question. The given translation is wrong, as is often the case with the Tanaka Corpus. The translation is for この間の金曜日の欠勤を弁解できるかね。.

「欠勤」に関連した英語例文の一覧 - Weblio英語例文検索

So when using Weblio should I distrust the Tanaka Corpus answers?

Is there a list of more/less trustworthy sources?

Is the Goo dictionary more accurate?

Mike Cash · 13 Dec 2015

WonkoTheSane said:
So when using Weblio should I distrust the Tanaka Corpus answers?

I think the takeaway lesson here may be "Typos are more apparent in your stronger language".

SomeCallMeChris · 14 Dec 2015

WonkoTheSane said:
Is the Goo dictionary more accurate?

Yes, very much so. Goo is just citing the Shogakukan Progressive dictionary, which is a very good dictionary.

The Progressive was my first paper dictionary, actually. It was always accurate, but back then I wasn't always good enough at deconjugating to actually find the word I needed!

eeky · 14 Dec 2015

WonkoTheSane said:
should I distrust the Tanaka Corpus answers?

My impression (based on what is available via the "Tatoeba" project) is that the great majority of the Japanese-English pairs are correct. However, errors do exist.

Toritoribe · 15 Dec 2015

WonkoTheSane said:
So when using Weblio should I distrust the Tanaka Corpus answers?

The problem is that the Tanaka Corpus excerpted just a single sentence from really-existed articles and gave just its translation without the context. For instance, この間の金曜日の欠勤を弁解できるかね。 can also mean "I wonder I/you/they/it can account for my/your/their absence last Friday", so "Can you account for your absence last Friday?" is just one of the possible translations.

WonkoTheSane · 15 Dec 2015

Toritoribe said:
The problem is that the Tanaka Corpus excerpted just a single sentence from really-existed articles and gave just its translation without the context. For instance, この間の金曜日の欠勤を弁解できるかね。 can also mean "I wonder I/you/they/it can account for my/your/their absence last Friday", so "Can you account for your absence last Friday?" is just one of the possible translations.

Ah, I understand, it's not necessarily wrong it's just incomplete.

It makes it difficult to rely on the results. I spend so much of my time looking things up and then using the results as a reference for future use that I'm concerned about how much else I'm doing incorrectly.

As with many things about learning Japanese, I often feel that each step forward is made at the expense of at least half of a step backwards because I learn what I've mislearned.

Mike Cash · 15 Dec 2015

WonkoTheSane said:
As with many things about learning Japanese, I often feel that each step forward is made at the expense of at least half of a step backwards because I learn what I've mislearned.

A common lament.

I would like nothing better than to tell you it eventually goes away, but it doesn't. About a week ago my wife corrected me on the usage of a word and wanted to know if I was just being silly and using it incorrectly on purpose. I told her that I wasn't. Apparently I had been burdened with an insufficiently precise understanding of the use of 女々しい and using it wrong at least half the time for almost thirty years. Live and learn.

から

eeky

先輩

lanthas

Mike Cash

骨も命も皆此の土地に埋めよう

Toritoribe

松葉解禁

eeky

先輩

Mike Cash

骨も命も皆此の土地に埋めよう

WonkoTheSane

先輩

Mike Cash

骨も命も皆此の土地に埋めよう

SomeCallMeChris

先輩

eeky

先輩

Toritoribe

松葉解禁

WonkoTheSane

先輩

Mike Cash

骨も命も皆此の土地に埋めよう

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