入れる / 首 / 多い方 / すっきりしなくて / お腹にやさしい

Hi,


1. 家の裏庭なら１０人以上入れるわよ。

Translation given: "My backyard can hold more than ten people."

Is 入れる the potential form of 入る or just the verb 入れる? How can you tell?


2. This is part of the instructions for an exercise in which students are supposed to say which parts of the body various diseases affect.

首から上のものには１、 ・・・ と書いてください。

I suppose 首 must mean "neck" in this case? Generally, how can one tell whether 首 means "neck" or "head"?


3. 下の資料を見て、日本人の死亡原因のうち、多い方から ３つを書き出しましょう。

My translation: "Look at the data below, and write down three of the main causes of death amongst the Japanese."

In what sense is 方 used (and how is it pronounced)? Is "three of the most common causes" the correct interpetation, or should it be "the three most common causes"?


4. お腹がすっきりしなくて、・・・

I gather this is referring to some kind of stomach complaint, but what exactly does すっきりしなくて mean in this context?


5. じゃあ、これがいいでしょう。お腹にやさしい整腸剤で す。

Is this parsed as お腹に [やさしい整腸剤] or [お腹にやさしい]整腸剤?

1)
The potential form はいれる is more common, but いれる is also possible. In the latter case, the sentence means "If that were my backyard, I would jam more than ten people in there(but actually, the backyard is not mine, so I won't do that)".

2)
As a concrete part of body, like as asking the part you feel pain at in your example, 首 is the neck and the head is 頭.

3)
That's ほう. 多い方から３つ means the top three in order of largest to smallest (by the number of the patients in this case). Thus, 少ない方から３つ means the top three in order of smallest to largest.

4)
not clear

5)
the latter

Thank you.

1. I am often quite confused with 入る（はいる）, 入る（いる） and 入れる（いれる）.

To start with, I am confused about whether 入る（はいる） is transitive or intransitive or both. As a non-potential statement, does it make sense to say １０人が家の裏庭に入る（はいる）? How about １０人が家の裏庭を入る（はいる）? The first one looks right to me, but the second one seems dubious, and yet at least one dictionary says that 入る（はいる） is transitive, so it ought to take a direct object?

入る[いる] is not frequently used in Modern Japanese. はいる is more common for the case. いる is basically used in proverbs or idiomatic phrase, like 飛んで火に入る夏の虫 or 気に入る.

はいる can be considered intransitive. を indicates the location of entrance, as same as the location of transfer in ～を歩く or the location of departure in ～を出る. In fact, １０人が家の裏庭をはいる has a nuance that 裏庭 is not the destination. It sounds that the ten people go somewhere through the backyard, like 裏庭をはいって家の中に行く. This を is close to から, I think.

Thanks, that's useful. Going back to the original sentence, 家の裏庭なら１０人以上入れるわよ, in the usual 入れる = はいれる interpretation, １０人(以上) is the subject of the verb, while in the 入れる = いれる interpretation, the speaker is the subject, and １０人(以上) is the object – is that right?

Perfect!