なれない / が / へ / 動く / を

[eeky]

Hello,


1. あんな、ものを言う機械なんか好きになれない。

Translation given: "I can't begin to like those machines that say things."

I'm assuming this なれない is the negative potential form of なる(成る), right?


2. 塾がよいがふえる

Translation given: "evening cram schools will really increase"

a) I don't understand the grammatical structure of this, with the two がs. I thought it was [塾がよい]がふえる, meaning "(the number of) good cram schools is increasing / will increase", but this doesn't match the translation given.

b) Also, do we know it must be future tense because present tense would be 増えている? Or could がふえる also be present tense?


3. 水ビジネス復調へ

(newspaper headline)

Translation given: "A New Vitality for the Water Business."

What is the purpose of へ here?


4. "動く天然水道"の宅配

Translation given: "Natural Water Makes Household Deliveries".

a) What is the purpose of 動く here?

b) The translation seems a bit odd (some of the translations in this book are not great English). It almost sounds as if "Natural Water" is the name of a company, but I'm assuming that's not the case?


5. 彼らは会社を転々とした。

Translation given: "They were transferred from one office to another."

In this case does を have a sense of "throughout (the company)"?

 

[Toritoribe]

1)
Right.

2) a)
Your interpretation [塾がよい]がふえる is correct, but 塾がよい is not 塾/が/よい but 塾通い, i.e., "the students who go to evening cram schools" or "(the action) going to evening cram schools".

b)
Is that a stand-alone sentence? It can be the present tense in some context, I think.

3)
水ビジネスが復調へ向かっている
To indicate the direction

4)
It seems like "天然水道 that is moving spontaneously" as a figurative expression of "天然水道 companies deliver", but I need more context to interpret it correctly.

5)
転々とする means 次々に変える "to change something frequently", so it's just indicating the object.

 

[eeky]

Thank you!

2b is presented as a phrase to be used in a sentence construction exercise. The accompanying context actually makes it clear that the future tense is intended, but somehow I lost sight of that fact.

4. It is quite hard for me to understand exactly which piece of text this headline is supposed to relate to, and much of the text is also too small for me to read, so I won't worry about this one any more.

5. This is quite a fussy point, but the reason I thought it meant "throughout the company" is that the translation given, "They were transferred from one office to another", implies (to me) that they were moved around within the same company. Whereas を would seem to suggest that the company (会社) changed (i.e. they were moved from one company to another). Do you think the Japanese more correctly means that they were moved from one department to another within the same company, or were moved from one company to another?

 

[Toritoribe]

2) b)
Yeah, I think the future tense is more common.

5)
The latter. They changed the company they were working at frequently.