A couple sentences

nice gaijin · 3 Sep 2007

genericdave said:
Whoops. Looks like I really messed up the first sentence without realizing it. I meant to put 「彼の言っているのは変です。」. I'm mostly just interested in if I'm understanding this concept of 「彼の言っている」 as I should be. Is it correct? Is it just defining the act of speaking as his more specifically?

No. You can't use the posessive の for a verb.

走っていることが難しいです
The act of running is difficult.

I chose こと because I'm talking specifically about the action, not a particular instance. But from your example above it seems like either this is wrong, or I could also use の here.

Well, こと is generally used for more abstract things, but there are other uses for it. There are specific grammar structures that call for the use of こと、 for which の cannot be substituted, and vice-versa.

の is also not bound to a single purpose, and doesn't have to refer to a single instance of an action. when I used the example 漢字を書くのが難しいです, I wasn't referring to a single act of writing kanji, but writing kanji in general.

昨日（の？）走っていたのは難しかったです。
The running we did yesterday was difficult

I'm unsure about the の after 昨日 here because I've always been taught to just leave it dangling without a particle. I'm pretty sure you can throw a で on there if you please, but in this case I felt like a の would work because I'm specifically talking about the running that happened yesterday. Ergh. So many things to be cleared up.

I don't know what you are talking about throwing particles around. You need to have a firm grasp of the basics before you can start playing with different tenses.

How are you studying? You're all over the place and I don't think I can help you by fixing sentences one at a time. You gotta crawl before you walk; what materials do you have on the basic particles は、が、を、の、に、で、 etc?

Elizabeth · 3 Sep 2007

genericdave said:
Whoops. Looks like I really messed up the first sentence without realizing it. I meant to put 「彼の言っているのは変です。」. I'm mostly just interested in if I'm understanding this concept of 「彼の言っている」 as I should be. Is it correct? Is it just defining the act of speaking as his more specifically?

彼の言う(言っている) is fine and there is no difference in meaning or politeness or any other dimension between it and 彼が言う(言っている).

の is somewhat more common because apparently it is simply an easier speech pattern or utterance to produce (at least that was the explanation given me).

Charles Barkley · 3 Sep 2007

genericdave said:
昨日（の？）走っていたのは難しかったです。
The running we did yesterday was difficult

I'm unsure about the の after 昨日 here because I've always been taught to just leave it dangling without a particle. I'm pretty sure you can throw a で on there if you please, but in this case I felt like a の would work because I'm specifically talking about the running that happened yesterday. Ergh. So many things to be cleared up.

I don't think の would go after 昨日; as you said, there is no reason to put anything after it. Perhaps what you are confused about is the way that の can replace が in a relative clause (a clause that decribes a noun and acts like one long adjective). For example:

経験がある。 I have experience.
経験がある人。 A person with experience.
経験のある人。 A person with experience.

経験のある人を求めています。 We are looking for a person with experience (an employer's position, perhaps).

At the end of a sentence, you would use が here. But, if the same phrase becomes a relative clause, you can use either が or の｡ In the same way that の can be used to have one noun describe another, it also can replace が in adjectival phrases like the one above.

Aside from the problem with の, this sentence seems very wrong. 昨日（の？）走っていたのは難しかったです。

For one thing, running is rarely, if ever 難しい--perhaps if there are a variety of moving hurdles, it might qualify. You probably mean 大変。 Also, the 走っていたのは is ponderous.

I imagine something like 「昨日は大変でしたね」 would be more than sufficient.

Elizabeth · 3 Sep 2007

Charles Barkley said:
Aside from the problem with の, this sentence seems very wrong. 昨日（の？）走っていたのは難しかったです。
For one thing, running is rarely, if ever 難しい--perhaps if there are a variety of moving hurdles, it might qualify. You probably mean 大変。 Also, the 走っていたのは is ponderous.
I imagine something like 「昨日は大変でしたね」 would be more than sufficient.

This at least I corrected immediately, albeit on the previous page. Maybe she was hobbled by a strain or sprained ankle or whatever. Until other basic errors get clarified or a context gets inserted, the particular adjective is pretty much of secondary importance.

昨日走るのが難しかったです。

Running yesterday was difficult.

nice gaijin · 3 Sep 2007

経験がある人。 A person without experience.
経験のある人。 A person without experience.

Don't you mean "a person with experience"?

I imagine something like 「昨日は大変でしたね」 would be more than sufficient.

This is much more appropriate, and shows how contextual Japanese is. My first instinct would be simply (昨日）お疲れ様でした。

Elizabeth; I'm a bit confused by what you said in post #27. Except for relative clauses, when can の replace が? If the clause is modifying a noun it's fine, but the way you put it gave me the impression that the two particles were interchangeable...

Elizabeth · 3 Sep 2007

nice gaijin said:
Elizabeth; I'm a bit confused by what you said in post #27. Except for relative clauses, when can の replace が? If the clause is modifying a noun it's fine, but the way you put it gave me the impression that the two particles were interchangeable...

They are most definately interchangeable in a subordinate or relative clause with the noun 事. It was careless on my part not to notice that didn't happen to be the sentence I was looking at.

彼の言っている事は変だ（と思います）。
彼が言っている事は変だ（と思います）。

Charles Barkley · 3 Sep 2007

Oops, yes, I originally had typed out 経験のない but changed it because it was easier for me to write an example sentence using 経験のある。 Editing the original post...

Elizabeth · 3 Sep 2007

nice gaijin said:
Don't you mean "a person with experience"?

This is much more appropriate, and shows how contextual Japanese is. My first instinct would be simply (昨日）お疲れ様でした。

I would say this is too probably vague and assuming too much from the original phrase "It was difficult to run yesterday" which is a perfectly natural way of thinking in Japanese, verb included. Obviously there are circumstances the action doesn't need repeating such as being out on the track today and talking to the very same teammates that went through the very same drills together yesterday. "It's a lot better today than yesterday" or whatever would omit the obvious with the meaning still perfectly intact.

お疲れ様でした is used out of gratitude or to thank someone for their hard work and effort. It is a polite phrase to use when a stressful or wearing hassle/duty/event/job etc has been completed. I've personally never heard it used a day later or in relation to an clearly physical endurance such as a sporting relay but that could be my inexperience at work as well...

nice gaijin · 3 Sep 2007

In my experience, in school clubs and circles (my first thought when talking about running), お疲れ様 is used for practically everything. Obviously the context is what gives meaning to the vaguer expressions, but it's really not necessarily to spell everything out. I think we're getting a bit off track here though.

genericdave · 3 Sep 2007

Elizabeth said:
But の is generally more personal, conversational and emotive than こと。The degree to which they are interchangeable grammatically or in common practice varies extremely from case to case. I don't know how to make it any clearer that you are absolutely going to need to start with as few words and as simple a structure as possible until you've built up enough familiarity and understanding of the language to know what sounds natural from Japanese to English.

Ah. This makes sense. I had actually suspected that this could be the case, but thought that maybe it was indicating something different to use の instead of が.

nice gaijin said:
I don't know what you are talking about throwing particles around. You need to have a firm grasp of the basics before you can start playing with different tenses.

How are you studying? You're all over the place and I don't think I can help you by fixing sentences one at a time. You gotta crawl before you walk; what materials do you have on the basic particles は、が、を、の、に、で、 etc?

I started this thread to ask questions. Therefore I'm asking a lot of questions. I practice what I do know elsewhere, but when I venture into the realm of the unknown I have no way of checking myself. It's easy to read about what you can do in textbooks, but I find they often leave out what you can't do. It's important for me to know my boundaries and to be able to address things that most texts don't go over, but that pop up here and there in what I see and hear and read. I think it's important to ask as many questions as possible, I learn more that way.

Elizabeth · 3 Sep 2007

nice gaijin said:
In my experience, in school clubs and circles (my first thought when talking about running), お疲れ様 is used for practically everything. Obviously the context is what gives meaning to the vaguer expressions, but it's really not necessarily to spell everything out. I think we're getting a bit off track here though.

Although I would say that is most certainly not genericdave's frame of reference which goes to show the importance of making full, proper sentences for beginners and learning the more unique expressions in parallel as their core grammar starts to take shape.

お疲れ様 is also used by mothers in this country taking the kids to all day Saturday Japanese classes. It's shorthand in that very limited setting but of course they still need to know how to complain to everyone else ad nauseum about what a time consuming, pain in the rear sacrifice this is for the children just to learn some stupid kanji...etc etc.

I started this thread to ask questions. Therefore I'm asking a lot of questions. I practice what I do know elsewhere, but when I venture into the realm of the unknown I have no way of checking myself. It's easy to read about what you can do in textbooks, but I find they often leave out what you can't do. It's important for me to know my boundaries and to be able to address things that most texts don't go over, but that pop up here and there in what I see and hear and read. I think it's important to ask as many questions as possible, I learn more that way.

It's certainly wise to take advantage of every available resource for informal patterns or other equivalents that more conservative books are reluctant to explain in depth. In my case, it needed more than a couple years of letter writing to be able to turn が into の at the right places, never having encountered this mysterious bit of news in a general early level text.

genericdave · 4 Sep 2007

Elizabeth said:
It's certainly wise to take advantage of every available resource for informal patterns or other equivalents that more conservative books are reluctant to explain in depth. In my case, it needed more than a couple years of letter writing to be able to turn が into の at the right places, never having encountered this mysterious bit of news in a general early level text.

Well lucky for me I'm not that interesting in learning exactly how to use this kind of thing correctly. I guess I'm just trying to prepare for situations where I would be faced with it. Guess this kind of thing is a bit obscure but I have seen it used (here and there) and I wanted to make sure I wasn't misinterpreting it. Thanks, you've been a great help.

A couple sentences

nice gaijin

Resident Realist

Elizabeth

先輩

Charles Barkley

TNT Basketball Analyst

Elizabeth

先輩

nice gaijin

Resident Realist

Elizabeth

先輩

Charles Barkley

TNT Basketball Analyst

Elizabeth

先輩

nice gaijin

Resident Realist

genericdave

後輩

Elizabeth

先輩

genericdave

後輩

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