らしい / けっこう / ほどでも / こと

[eeky]

Hello,

1. 新しい先生は九州の人らしい。

Does this mean that the new teacher seems to be from Kyushu , or does it mean that s/he's typical of someone from Kyushu? How do you tell?


2. 大学で教えている友人から聞いたんですが、最近は大学 の講義の時にも携帯電話でメールをしている学生がけっこういるそうですよ。

My translation: "I heard from a friend who teaches at university that recently some students have even been sending emails from their mobile phones during lectures."

What does けっこう mean here?


3. 研究というほどでも・・・素人の道楽ですよ、おはずか しい。

Translation given: "It can hardly be called research... just an amateur's hobby, I'm ashamed to say."

Presumably the "it can hardly" sense comes out of ほどでも. Should I be trying to make sense of that in terms of ほど + で + も (and if so, how?), or should I just treat it as a fixed expression/idiom?


4. 自分が知っていることでおもしろかったことを書いてみ ましょう。

I assume this more or less means "Try writing about something interesting that you know of."

I'm unsure exactly how 自分が知っていること grammatically relates to おもしろかったこと. Does こと refer to the same thing in each place, so literally it means:

自分が知っていることで = something that you know about
おもしろかったこと = and that thing is interesting

?


5. この国の王は人ではなく、はるか天空に居られるという 三対の翼を持つ神獣なんだ。

Translation given: "The king of this country isn't a person, but a divine beast with three pairs of wings said to be in far away in the sky." (sic)

Is 居られる an honorific form of 居る? If so, is it pronounced おられる or いられる? How do you tell?

 

[Toritoribe]

1)
It's the former. When らしい is a predicate and means "typical", a person/personal pronoun can't be the subject of it. We can only describe a side/aspect of the person with らしい.
e.g.
新しい先生の考え方は（いかにも）九州の人らしい。
新しい先生は（いかにも）九州の人らしい話し方をする。
新しい先生は（いかにも）九州の人らしい人だ。

2)
That's more close to かなり or "a lot" rather than "some".
けっこういる: a lot of students have ...

3)
That's a shortened version of ～というほど（のもの）でもありません.

4)
自分が知っていることの中でおもしろかったことを書いてみましょう。
Does this make sense?;-)

5)
Yes, it's an honorific. It's ALWAYS read おられる when used as an honorific. Thus, if it's read いられる, it must be a passive or potential, at least in standard Japanese.

 

[Glenn]

1. I'd interpret it as "seems to be" or "I heard...". If people from 九州 have some commonly known set characteristics, I suppose it could be "fitting of...", but I guess the speaker would have to know them and have met the person in question.

2. かなり、たくさん、などなど。

3. There's a ない missing here. それほどでもない is the generic phrase. Here 研究 is the specific それ.

4. I think the second こと is more limited in scope than the first. That is, the first one is all the things I know, and the second one is all the interesting things out of the set of things that I know.

5. Yes, it's honorific, and it's pronounced おられる, which to me is counter-intuitive, because おる is humble and （ら）れる is used as an honorific, which logically would mean they cancel each other out, and you're left with いる, but that's not how it's used. It's used as an honorific, and in that sense, it's always おられる. The reason you know it's honorific here is because they're talking about a heavenly ruler, and because there really isn't any other interpretation that makes sense.

[Edit] Toritoribe beat me. Oh, and I hate the Alt+1 function. I've lost more posts that way...

 

[eeky]

That's a shortened version of ～というほど（のもの）でもありません.

That's what I love about Japanese... shortened versions that leave out crucial words like "not"!

自分が知っていることの中でおもしろかったことを書いてみましょう。

Yep, I get it.

Thanks for your help!

Edit: Thanks also Glenn; your post has just appeared...