食べられません / 建てられます / 世の中は... / 子どもを産み...

Hiya,

1. この肉は腐っているので、食べられません。

Translation given: "This meat can't be eaten - it's rotten."

山をけずって平らにすれば、もっと家が建てられます。

Translation given: "If the hill were levelled, more houses could be built."

I'm interested in the translation of 食べられません and 建てられます as "can't be eaten" and "could be built" respectively. I've learnt about the passive form and the potential form individually, but in this case they seem to be combined into a sort of "passive potential" which I don't recall seeing before. Could anyone explain this usage?


2. 世の中は時代とともによくなっていく、そしてよくして いくべきだ、と私は思います。

Yikes! I can't make head nor tail of this sentence. What does it mean?


3. 子どもを産み、育て、家事をやり、夫の働きいいように とりしきるのが主婦でした。

I get as far as "Bearing and raising children, doing the housework..."

Now I'm stuck with 夫の働きいいようにとりしきる. My guess is something like "running a business just like (her) husband", but I don't have much confidence in this (for one thing, there is no reason to think women's husbands, in general, "run businesses").

I'm also confused by のが主婦でした. It seems to literally mean that doing these things "was a housewife", which doesn't make much sense?

eeky said:

1. この肉は腐っているので、食べられません。

Translation given: "This meat can't be eaten - it's rotten."

山をけずって平らにすれば、もっと家が建てられます。

Translation given: "If the hill were levelled, more houses could be built."

I'm interested in the translation of 食べられません and 建てられます as "can't be eaten" and "could be built" respectively. I've learnt about the passive form and the potential form individually, but in this case they seem to be combined into a sort of "passive potential" which I don't recall seeing before. Could anyone explain this usage?

Click to expand...

To me the translation does not sound right.
They are simple potential, which happen to be the same form as passive.
I'd say "as this meat is rotten, one cannot eat it."
"If you level the hills, you can build more houses."

eeky said:

2. 世の中は時代とともによくなっていく、そしてよくして いくべきだ、と私は思います。

Yikes! I can't make head nor tail of this sentence. What does it mean?

Click to expand...

Things are getting better as the time passes and we should keep makikng them better, I think.

eeky said:

3. 子どもを産み、育て、家事をやり、夫の働きいいように とりしきるのが主婦でした。

I get as far as "Bearing and raising children, doing the housework..."

Now I'm stuck with 夫の働きいいようにとりしきる. My guess is something like "running a business just like (her) husband", but I don't have much confidence in this (for one thing, there is no reason to think women's husbands, in general, "run businesses").

I'm also confused by のが主婦でした. It seems to literally mean that doing these things "was a housewife", which doesn't make much sense?

Click to expand...

夫の働きいいようにとりしきる ＝ 夫が働きやすいように運営する
"Manage (the household) so that it is a comfortable one for her husband to work (i.e. he does not have to worry about the family while working as he can be confident that his wife is taking care of it.)

のが主婦でした
That what the housewife was (i.e. was expected to be, used to be)

undrentide said:

Things are getting better as the time passes and we should keep makikng them better, I think

Click to expand...

Hi undrentide. Thanks for your help. Could I check my understanding of this?

世の中は = In the world / in society / etc.

時代とともに = with the times = as time passes

よくなっていく = (things) are getting better

そしてよくして いくべきだ = and (we) should keep improving (them)

と私は思います = I think.

a) Does the sense of "keep" come from いく?

b) Does the other いく have the same sort of meaning, so we could maybe translate as "things keep getting better"?

eeky said:

Hi undrentide. Thanks for your help. Could I check my understanding of this?

世の中は = In the world / in society / etc.

時代とともに = with the times = as time passes

よくなっていく = (things) are getting better

そしてよくして いくべきだ = and (we) should keep improving (them)

と私は思います = I think.

a) Does the sense of "keep" come from いく?

b) Does the other いく have the same sort of meaning, so we could maybe translate as "things keep getting better"?

Click to expand...

Yes. ～ていく is used to express something is continuously happening.
There must be threads about ～ていく／～てくる explaining about the meaning and difference between these expressions but I cannot find them right now.

Thank you! I recognise the form of ～ていく of course, but my problem is usually figuring out exactly how to interpret it in some given situation.