じゃがいもを洗う。

seaDonkey · 11 Sep 2020

How is this Japanese? One of my fellow students likes to keep a diary in Japanese. These sentences are part of my attempt at making a diary entry. みてください。

けさ、ジャガイモを洗うと思っていた、そして、きれいなジャガイモに見つかってやったと思った。
This morning I was thinking 'I am going to wash potatoes' then I found some clean ones and thought 'excellent'.

I have tried here to keep the translation close to the Japanese version. The word 'potatoes' is repeated in the second sentence in the Japanese version. I am wondering how the sentence could be changed to avoid the repetition.

Toritoribe · 11 Sep 2020

There are grammatical problems in those sentences.

1) 洗うと思っていた sounds like the subject is not the speaker. The volitional form is better.
2) ジャガイモに見つかる means that the subject is found by potatoes.
3) Semantically, an adversative conjunction is more appropriate to connect the two sentences, not そして.

As for the repetition, you can use a pronoun like の, but I don't think it's not so bad to use ジャガイモ twice.

seaDonkey · 11 Sep 2020

Many thanks.

I found this on kawakawalearningstudio.com

Adding "to omou" or "to omotte iru" (~と思う, ~と思っている) after a verb that is in Volitional Form changes the meaning from "let's [verb]" to "I am thinking that I will [verb]."

あらおもみおも
けさ、ジャガイモを洗おうと思っていた、でも、きれいなジャガイモを見つかってやったと思った。

1) Understood.
2) 私はジャガイモに一つ打たれた。I think this example shown a correct usage of に。
3) ています form describes continuing states so そして must be wrong. eg 'I am married and then we had children' is of course wrong.

Toritoribe · 11 Sep 2020

seaDonkey said:
ジャガイモを見つかって

Still wrong. ジャガイモを見つかる means "(my) potatoes are found by someone else".

seaDonkey said:
私はジャガイモに一つ打たれた。I think this example shown a correct usage of に。

What do you mean by that sentence? (Actually, it doesn't make sense.)

seaDonkey said:
ています form describes continuing states

～ている form does not always describe progressive tense. The meaning is different depending on the verb. For instance, it can be the present state resulting from the past action, so there is no problem with 結婚していて、子供がいました in Japanese. My point is not there. It's only about the meaning.

seaDonkey · 12 Sep 2020

I messed it up. Thank you Toritobe for helping and sorry I missed the point and made mistakes. When creating the sentences I confused と思います with the English verb 'to think' eg 'I thought I was going to be washing potatoes.'. A bad mistake. So I started again and did a little reading on purpose of movement.

昨日の朝、私は六時に起きた、そして、キッチンへジャガイモをあらに行った、でも、とだなにきれいなジャガイモがあったから、私は休んで日本語の勉強をした。でも、あの勉強は悪いです。

This I think is better. Apologies again for the very poor quality of my first effort!

Toritoribe · 12 Sep 2020

No need to apologize.
Yeah, your newest one is much better. There are only a few mistakes.

1) There is a typo あらいに行った.
2) The sentence ends after 行った, so あらいに行った。 is correct, not a comma.
3) 休んで could be barely understandable, but やめて is more appropriate. I would use 私は洗うのをやめて.
4) What do you want to say by 悪い?

As for your previous sentences, the point is transitive verb vs. intransitive verb. It should be きれいなジャガイモが見つかって. You can also use きれいなジャガイモを見つけて.

seaDonkey · 12 Sep 2020

Thanks again for your help.

3) rested and then studied was not what I meant. This is better 'The potatoes were clean therefore I was able to rest.'. 洗うのやめて is helpful grammer, thanks.

。。から、私は休めた。

4) The last sentence was poor. Better somthing like this.

そして、日本語の勉強をした。あの勉強するのは難しかったが、面白くて楽しかったです。

this practice has been helpful for my upcoming classes that I was not really prepared for.

Toritoribe · 13 Sep 2020

3)
I see. Yes, 休めた。is better since it's not misinterpreted.

4)
It's OK just 難しかったが since what is difficult is obvious from the context.
です is unnecessary. You need to unify the level of the politeness.

じゃがいもを洗う。

seaDonkey

後輩

Toritoribe

松葉解禁

seaDonkey

後輩

Toritoribe

松葉解禁

seaDonkey

後輩

Toritoribe

松葉解禁

seaDonkey

後輩

Toritoribe

松葉解禁

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