耐えねば / 何が起こるか / だって / はっきりしている

[eeky]

Hello,


1. 彼女はわが身の不遇にじっと耐えねばならなかった。

Translation given: "She had to smile at her misfortune."

Is 耐えねば a typo for 耐えれば?


2. 何が起こるか予測できない。

Translation given: "It is unexpected what breaks out."

The given translation seems a bit unnatural; I translated as "Unpredictable things sometimes happen". But really I just want to know if I've parsed it OK:

何が起こるか = Some things happen
予測できない = (that) it is not possible to predict

I'm not sure if I've seen exactly this use of 何...か before, so I'm guessing.


3. ウチだって閑古鳥が鳴くようなカツカツの状態だから、 バイトを雇う余裕なんてない。

Translation given: "We're in a slump, barely scraping by, so we certainly don't have the margin to take on a part-time worker."

What does だって mean here? (Perennial question!)


4. 初めてのものに対して、それがどんなものか知りたいと いう気持ちがあればやる気が出る。それから、それを何 のためにするのかはっきりしている場合もやる気が出る 。

My translation: "When doing something for the first time, if you want to know what it's like, you're keen to do it. You're also keen if you're clear about the purpose of doing it."

Is this about right? (The English is slightly clunky, but I'm not worried about this provided the meaning is essentially correct.)

In the second sentence, does はっきりしている mean something like "clearly understand"? I know はっきり means "clearly", I'm just not certain where the "understand" part comes from.

 

[Toritoribe]

1)
耐えねば is a classical form of 耐えなければ. ね is the 已然形(similar to -ba conditional form) of a classical negative auxiliary verb ぬ, which is the equivalent to ない in modern Japanese.

2)
何が起こるか is more likely "what will happen/what happens".

Unpredictable things sometimes happen.
予測できないことが時々起こる

3)
too/also

(Perennial question!)

might be so...

だって / もう、ラーセンさんが ... / 何だかよくお ... / のせて | Japan Forum

そうかもしれない / エイミーさんが家に来てくれて / 入りました / ようにして | Japan Forum

たって / 私だって色々がまんしている / わるいことをしました / 注文して | Japan Forum

4)
Yes, your translation is correct.

The purpose is clear for the doer. = The doer clearly understands the purpose.

 

[eeky]

Thank you! I made silly mistakes with #1 and #2.

The trouble with だって is that the dictionary says "but; however; still; yet; although; even though; even; even if; or something", and I have no idea how to tell what is meant in any given context.

 

[Glenn]

See if this helps: if it's used after a noun like a particle, think of it as "too"; if it's used at the beginning of a sentence (だって、フリーザはもう死んだはずじゃ・・・ yeah, so... that's just what came to mind first), it's "but". That's probably most cases, I'd imagine (but may be wrong, of course).

 

[eeky]

Well that sounds simple. (I'm a bit baffled by your example sentence though. "But the freezer should have died now..."??)

 

[Glenn]

Yeah, the omitted part is なかった（のか）, so だって、フリーザはもう死んだはずじゃなかったのか？(but isn't Freeza supposed to be dead already?).

 

[eeky]

Oh. I was thinking household appliances, but I suppose you mean Frieza - Wikipedia

 

[Glenn]

Yup, that's the one. I guess one of the reasons I remember that sentence so well (aside from having seen that episode countless times) is that it gave me so many fits in trying to figure out just what the grammar that made it work was. It just didn't seem to make sense, partly because I remember reading a description of はず（だ）that said it's never negated as はずじゃない, and always はずが（は）ない. Even giving the benefit of the doubt that this is more rhetorical than outright negation, there are still instances where it is negated with じゃない (こんなはずじゃなかった). So I wonder if I'm misremembering what I read, or if it really did say that.

By the way, "freezer" is 冷凍庫.

 

[eeky]

Yeah, maybe in your "Freeza" sentence じゃなかった is not functioning so much as a negation but more as a set expression tagged on to the end of the sentence.

Actually, 冷凍庫 is one of the dispiritingly small number of Japanese words that I know, but フリーザー is also listed in WWWJDIC as meaning "freezer, refrigerator".

Correction: The word that I know -- or, it seems, don't know -- is 冷蔵庫. Groan...

 

[Glenn]

Also, this thread has caused me to look into 已然形 more, and I've found something interesting (this will show my ignorance of Classical Japanese, but whatever):

已然とは「すでにそうした」「すでにそうなった」の意 味であり、確定条件（～ので）を表す「ば」や「ども」 をつけることでできる語形であるのでこの名がある。一 方、口語において仮定形と名称を変えたのは、この語形 をつくる「ば」の文法的機能が仮定条件を表すものに変 化したからである。ちなみに文語において仮定条件を表 す場合、「ば」の前は未然形であった。
已然形 -- Wikipedia

I was wondering how "already-sort of thing-form" could be used for conditionals, and the answer is "it wasn't." Also, I found out that the conditional ば used to be appended to 未然形 (書かば, あらば, 言わば, 受けば, and the like). But the negated conditional goes with the 已然形 of the negated verb? Classical Japanese is complicated, man...

Actually, 冷凍庫 is one of the dispiritingly small number of Japanese words that I know, but フリーザー is also listed in WWWJDIC as meaning "freezer, refrigerator".

Huh. I wouldn't have thought that. Then again, I haven't had many conversations about freezers in Japanese, either.

 

[Toritoribe]

The following explanation could be an answer.

未然形「ず」は室町時代以降「ずば」の形で用いられた 。

「ず」の検索結果 - Yahoo!辞書

examples
平氏にあらずんば人にあらず
雉も鳴かずば撃たれまい


BTW, indeed the classical form of 受ける is a 下二段動詞 受く, and its 未然形 is 受け. But my memory says 受けば sounds strange.

木、縄を受かば/受くれば則ち直く

Whmmm...

 

[Glenn]

Ah, like 虎穴に入らずんば虎児を得ず. But where does the ん come from? Was it like a pre-nasalization in some dialects or something? I notice it's absent in 雉も鳴かずば撃たれまい.

I obviously can't say anything about 受けば/受かば (IME wouldn't convert that, though)/受くれば (that either).

 

[Toritoribe]

しから‐ず‐ば【▽然らずば】
［接］《古くは「しからずは」》そうでなければ。しか らずんば。
「『われに自由を与えよ。―死を与えよ』」

しからずば【然らずば】の意味 - goo国語辞書

しから‐ずん‐ば【▽然らずんば】
［接］「しからずば」の音変化。「生か、―死か」

しからずんば【然らずんば】の意味 - goo国語辞書

平氏にあらずば/雉も鳴かずんば/虎穴に入らずば are all acceptable. It would simply depend on which one is more common, I think.

 

[Glenn]

I see. So it's basically free variation. Thanks!