も / 書いちゃおう / やる / 落ち着いて / よく

Hi,

1. 最近、わたしたちの国でも日本研究が盛んになってきま した。

Translation given (in a dictionary): "Recently the study of Japan has become popular in our country."

I figured that で meant "in (our country)", and も meant mean "too", so I translated it as "Recently the study of Japan has become popular in our country too." However, the dictionary seems to have left も untranslated. I've noticed this before, too, with も. Does も often have a fairly weak meaning in Japanese? Maybe here a sense of weak emphasis?


2. 今晩徹夜で書いちゃおうと思ってるんだ。

I believe this essentially means "I think I'll stay up all night and write (the report)", but I'm not sure about 書いちゃおう. Could it be a contraction of 書いてしまおう perhaps?


3. Two people are discussing going to see a film.

「七人の侍」なんてめったにやらないんだから、来た時 に見なきゃ。

a) I'm not sure how to interpret やる. Does the first part mean "(They) rarely show films like 「七人の侍」"?

b) I'm also not sure about 来た時に見なきゃ. Does it mean "... (so) this time (we) must see (the film)"?


4. 隣に座った美人が気になって、落ち着いて本が読めませ んでした。

Translation given: "I was so conscious of the beautiful woman sitting next to me that I couldn't concentrate on my book".

Since 落ち着く means something like "settle down", does the part after the comma mean "... settling down, (I) couldn't read (my) book"? The doubt I have is that the context suggests he couldn't settle down. Does the negative of 読めません somehow distribute to 落ち着いて too?


5. 上田さんは、わたしにきげんよく会ってくれました。

Translation given: "[Mrs] Ueda met me in a good mood."

How does よく work in this sentence? What does it modify?

eeky said:

1. 最近、わたしたちの国でも日本研究が盛んになってきま した。
Translation given (in a dictionary): "Recently the study of Japan has become popular in our country."
I figured that で meant "in (our country)", and も meant mean "too", so I translated it as "Recently the study of Japan has become popular in our country too." However, the dictionary seems to have left も untranslated. I've noticed this before, too, with も. Does も often have a fairly weak meaning in Japanese? Maybe here a sense of weak emphasis?

Click to expand...

Yeah, that も literally means "too/also" connoting "as same as in other countries" in the example sentence.

eeky said:

2. 今晩徹夜で書いちゃおうと思ってるんだ。
I believe this essentially means "I think I'll stay up all night and write (the report)", but I'm not sure about 書いちゃおう. Could it be a contraction of 書いてしまおう perhaps?

Click to expand...

eeky said:

3. Two people are discussing going to see a film.
「七人の侍」なんてめったにやらないんだから、来た時 に見なきゃ。
a) I'm not sure how to interpret やる. Does the first part mean "(They) rarely show films like 「七人の侍」"?

Click to expand...

Right. やる means 上映する or "to show" in this case.

eeky said:

b) I'm also not sure about 来た時に見なきゃ. Does it mean "... (so) this time (we) must see (the film)"?

Click to expand...

Yes.

（映画が）来た時に見なきゃ
(literally) we must see the film when it comes to our town

eeky said:

4. 隣に座った美人が気になって、落ち着いて本が読めませ んでした。
Translation given: "I was so conscious of the beautiful woman sitting next to me that I couldn't concentrate on my book".
Since 落ち着く means something like "settle down", does the part after the comma mean "... settling down, (I) couldn't read (my) book"? The doubt I have is that the context suggests he couldn't settle down. Does the negative of 読めません somehow distribute to 落ち着いて too?

Click to expand...

Yeah, that's the same to this sentence. The whole clause 落ち着いて本が読める is nagated.

落ち着いて本が読めませんでした ＝ 『落ち着いて本 を読むこと』ができませんでした

eeky said:

5. 上田さんは、わたしにきげんよく会ってくれました。
Translation given: "[Mrs] Ueda met me in a good mood."
How does よく work in this sentence? What does it modify?

Click to expand...

機嫌よく: in a good mood
機嫌が悪い: to be in a bad mood

Toritoribe said:

Yeah, that も literally means "too/also" connoting "as same as in other countries" in the example sentence.

Click to expand...

Thanks Toritoribe. So, would you say the dictionary translation is actually wrong (or at least inadequate) for failing to incorporate the meaning of も?

Toritoribe said:

機嫌よく: in a good mood

Click to expand...

Can we put よく directly after any noun with similar effect, or is this a special idiom?

Oh, and one other question if I may. Going back to 落ち着いて本が読めませんでした, let's say we wanted the same structure of "verb-て + 本が読めませんでした", but we didn't want the negative sense to apply to the first verb. Could we do that somehow?

It's only the grammar I'm interested in, so if it doesn't work in Japanese with 落ち着く then please choose any other verb that makes sense.

eeky said:

Thanks Toritoribe. So, would you say the dictionary translation is actually wrong (or at least inadequate) for failing to incorporate the meaning of も?

Click to expand...

Maybe because "Recently the study of Japan has become popular in our country too." could be an overly literal written translation (read childish) ?? Is there a contest or such by which Japan is more studied in one region than another ? And the editors probably decided ""Recently the study of Japan has also become popular in our country" was ambiguous. でも as "Even in my country" is alright.

Can we put よく directly after any noun with similar effect, or is this a special idiom?

Click to expand...

You mean leaving out the が in a noun phrase of condition or mood that normally takes がよく ?

eeky said:

Oh, and one other question if I may. Going back to 落ち着いて本が読めませんでした, let's say we wanted the same structure of "verb-て + 本が読めませんでした", but we didn't want the negative sense to apply to the first verb. Could we do that somehow?
It's only the grammar I'm interested in, so if it doesn't work in Japanese with 落ち着く then please choose any other verb that makes sense.

Click to expand...

As an example making a weakly causal "te" verb or adjective form that was logically consistent with not being able to read the book ? (I was in a bad mood/I was dancing for joy and couldn't read...etc).

Elizabeth said:

You mean leaving out the が in a noun phrase of condition or mood that normally takes がよく ?

Click to expand...

I'm not sure. Any general information about the grammar that allows an adverb to be placed directly after a noun to modify that noun, as in "機嫌よく = in a good mood", would be useful. I don't think I have learned this grammar and I don't understand whether it is generally applicable, or works only with よく, or works only in certain special idioms.

Elizabeth said:

As an example making a weakly causal "te" verb or adjective form that was logically consistent with not being able to read the book ? (I was in a bad mood/I was dancing for joy and couldn't read...etc).

Click to expand...

Yes, anything like that. For example, with a certain suitable verb, can we say "verb-て本が読めませ んでした" to mean "I did verb and/but couldn't read my book", or does that pattern always propagate the negative sense to "verb", so we have to find another way of saying it?

eeky said:

Oh, and one other question if I may. Going back to 落ち着いて本が読めませんでした, let's say we wanted the same structure of "verb-て + 本が読めませんでした", but we didn't want the negative sense to apply to the first verb. Could we do that somehow?

Click to expand...

Hmm... I can't find the way with same structure.
"落ち着いてしまって本が読めませんでした" is an example. "落ち着いちゃって" is okay too. Logically (logico-linguistically) these new sentences are equal to "落ち着いたので本が読めませんでした".

eeky said:

So, would you say the dictionary translation is actually wrong (or at least inadequate) for failing to incorporate the meaning of も?

Click to expand...

It can be said that the speaker intends to say, consciously or subconsciously, "as same as in other countries".

eeky said:

Can we put よく directly after any noun with similar effect, or is this a special idiom?

Click to expand...

Not all nouns that have the structure "nounがいい/悪い" can be used as "nounよく", but some of them can do as follows.
e.g.
運よく, 気分よく, 元気よく, 思い切りよく, 雰囲気よく, 都合よく, 効率よく, 行儀よく, 段取りよく, 要領よく, 幸先よく, 勘よく, テンポよく, リズムよく, タイミングよく, バランスよく,,,

Interestingly, "noun悪く" is far less common even among them ("nounが悪くて" is used instead).

eeky said:

Going back to 落ち着いて本が読めませんでした, let's say we wanted the same structure of "verb-て + 本が読めませんでした", but we didn't want the negative sense to apply to the first verb. Could we do that somehow?
It's only the grammar I'm interested in, so if it doesn't work in Japanese with 落ち着く then please choose any other verb that makes sense.

Click to expand...

e.g.
隣に美人が座ったので、気になって本が読めませんでした。
隣に座った美人に振られたので、落ち込んで（いて）本が読めませんでした。

But, in these examples, both 気になって and 落ち込んで（いて） explain the reason why the speaker can't read the book.

Here's another example.

予約をして（いて/おいて、それなのに）行かないと、空席ができてしまいます。

ない doesn't negate 予約をする in the sentence above. Thus, the answer is "Yes, it can be occurred especially when the two clauses have a subtle relation"(i.e., 落ち着いて directly modifies 読める/読めない).

Thanks Toritoribe. Can I please check the translation of

予約をして行かないと、空席ができてしまいます。

Does this mean something like "If (you) make a reservation but don't go, a vacant seat will become available"?

eeky said:

Thanks Toritoribe. Can I please check the translation of
予約をして行かないと、空席ができてしまいます。
Does this mean something like "If (you) make a reservation but don't go, a vacant seat will become available"?

Click to expand...

"If (you) make a reservation but don't go, the seat will be empty/the organizer must keep the seat empty."

That sentence CAN mean like the above, however, as you accurately translated as "but don't go", 予約をしたのに行かないと is more common for the case.

Late to the party here (StarCraft II's fault), but just wanted to say that you can also use at least 正しく the same way as the above よく (礼儀正しく, 規則正しく, and probably others).

Glenn said:

Late to the party here (StarCraft II's fault), but just wanted to say that you can also use at least 正しく the same way as the above よく (礼儀正しく, 規則正しく, and probably others).

Click to expand...

Yeah, I thought of that, too. But 礼儀正しい/規則正しい acts like a single word from the first place, i.e., 礼儀が正しい/規則が正しい is not common, is it? (That's why I didn't list 格好よく, 気持ちよく or like that in my previous post.)

Oh, I had them lumped together in my head like they acted the same way. Whoops.