Fourth Newspaper Translation: 新しいコロナウイルス 手を洗うこととマスクが大切

[Zizka]

Sure, that's a good point. It solves that situation but it doesn't help for future situations where I have more than one verb in a clause and I need to determine which verbs goes with which subject is what I'm saying but can't get across.

Anyhow about the translation:
''ウィルスがついた is a relative clause modifying the noun 手. ''
So the virus stuck to the hand but ''you'' is the subject.

If the virus has stuck to your hand and you touch the door and the like it may spread to other people.

 

[Toritoribe]

It's still wrong in the viewpoint of grammatical structure. ウイルスがついた手 is not "the virus has stuck to your hand". Your one is for ウイルスが手についた. Can you see the difference?

In addition, 手で触る is lost in your translation.

 

[Zizka]

ウイルスがついた手でドアなどに触ると
"The virus gets on your hands when you use the door and the like and it may spread to other people.''

 

[SomeCallMeChris]

I think there may be a problem understanding the English here. So, a little story.

There is no virus on my hands. (my hands are clean)
I touched a contaminated handle. (contaminated here means 'dirty with something that can make you sick').
That is how virus gets on hands. (that is how hands become contaminated.)
The virus got onto my hands. (my hands became contaminated. They may or may not still be contaminated when this sentence is spoken.)
The virus is on my hands. or There is virus on my hands. (my hands are and continue to be contaminated.)
I washed the virus off my hands. ( I washed my hands clean of the virus.)
The virus was on my hands. or There was virus on my hands. (my hands became contaminated, but are clean now.)
There is no longer virus on my hands. or The virus is no longer on my hands. (my hands are clean again)

Maybe there's also trouble understanding the Japanese, but, the virus is already on the subject's hands in ウイルスがついた手でドアなどに触る

 

[Toritoribe]

ウイルスがついた手でドアなどに触ると
"The virus gets on your hands when you use the door and the like and it may spread to other people.''

Sorry to point out this, but it has gotten worse, unfortunately.
What is your translation of just （あなたが）手でドアに触ると? (Actually, this is the core of the first clause.)

 

[bentenmusume]

Toritoribe-san's question is an important one. Another thing you seem to be missing is the grammatical structure and function of the relative clause ウィルスがついた手. (You seem to be grasping the meaning of the individual words, but not how they fit together with the rest of the sentence.)

Perhaps you could also give us your translation of just 「ウィルスがついた手」 (Hint: it's a noun phrase, not a complete sentence.)

 

[Zizka]

Sorry to point out this, but it has gotten worse, unfortunately.
What is your translation of just （あなたが）手でドアに触ると? (Actually, this is the core of the first clause.)

Well that's because I'm guessing since I don't understand.
Regarding your question: "If you touch the door with your hands".

 

[Toritoribe]

Yes, that's right. It's more likely "a door/doors" though. How about ウイルスがついた手? (bentenmusume-san gave you a hint).

 

[Zizka]

He said it's a noun phrase not a complete sentence. You've also said that it's not the "virus stuck to your hands". I think it's an attributive ついた but I don't know how to word it. You said that ついた is not the past but expresses an action that already happened. You said it's a relative clause. I always go back to "the virus which has stuck to your hands" but then you'll say that it's not right and to notice the difference between my translation and the newspaper article. That's where I'm at now.

 

[Toritoribe]

As I wrote, ウイルスがついた modifies 手, thus, this phrase refers to a hand/hands, and ウイルスがついた describes what kind of hand(s) it is.

 

[Zizka]

ウイルスがついた→ "virus infected hands"

 

[Toritoribe]

If you mean it's "virus-infected hands", not a sentence "virus(subject) infected(verb) hands(object)", you got it. The literal translation of ウイルスがついた手 is "a hand/hands the virus (has) stuck to." So, what is your translation of the whole sentence ウイルスがついた手でドアなどに触ると、ウイルスがほかの人にうつるかもしれません。?

 

[Zizka]

If you touch doors and the like with your virus infected hands it may spread to others.

 

[Toritoribe]

Yes, that's right.

It solves that situation but it doesn't help for future situations where I have more than one verb in a clause and I need to determine which verbs goes with which subject is what I'm saying but can't get across.

Do you remember 客が少ない２月と８月の１８日 in your other thread? I wrote "since there are few customers in February and August" using your translation, but the literal translation is "the 18th of February and August when customers are few". Thus, it's actually ambiguous which, the two days or two months, there are few customers just from the structure of the phrase.
However, it's odd that there are few customers only on the 18 of February and August every year as a common sense, and it's relatively well known that customers are few in February and August in Japan. Therefore it's interpreted that 客が少ない only modifies ２月と８月 as a result of all these reasons.

Also, I gave you an example 持っているカバンの色 in the same thread. The literal translation of this phrase is "the/a bag's color I have", but we usually can't possess a color, so it's reasonable to interpret it as "the color of a bag I have" as a common sense.
However, as for 好きなカバンの色, it's ambiguous whether the bag is favorite or the color of the bag is favorite. It's impossible to get the correct meaning only from the structure of the phrase.

The same goes with ライバル店が人をたくさん集めるため、特売セールを行っています。. You already know that this sentence can have two completely different meanings, and the correct meaning is decided only by the context.

Back to the example ウイルスがついた手でドアなどに触ると, indeed ウイルス can be the subject of 触る from the viewpoint of the structure of the clause, but it's illogical since virus doesn't have their hand(s), as I already pointed out.

Actually, this is an important key. As I wrote so far, it's sometimes or maybe often impossible to get the correct meaning just from the structure of the sentence/clause/phrase. You need to use your knowledge, common sense, the context, etc. etc. to get the correct meaning after all.

 

[Zizka]

I think what confused me was what I was talking about yesterday; the distinction between a pronominal verb and a non-pronominal one. I wanted to know the difference between ついた and 触る. When I read, "virus infected hands", it became clear, ついた is pronominal and therefore is restricted to modifying 手 while 触る isn't and therefore is the main verb of the clause. That's what I was missing. The other question I was asking was how to determine which verb goes with which subject which was simply that a pronominal describes its associated noun and that's it while the main verb drives the whole clause.

It's important that I can identify pronominal verbs in order to parse sentences properly.

 

[Toritoribe]

I don't think that's the only one point. You sometimes need to identify that the phrase "noun + が" preceding a pronominal (or modifying/adnominal/relative) verb is whether the subject of the pronominal verb or the whole clause, as you yourself wrote, or I wrote above. In other words, even if you can get that ついた modifies 手, there are cases where ウイルスが is the subject of the whole clause, not the subject of ついた. You need to interpret it from the context after all.

 

[SomeCallMeChris]

"virus infected hands"

As a matter of English usage, "infected hands" would mean the illness was in the hands.

"hands contaminated with a virus", "hands with virus on them".

He said

Perhaps you know something I don't, but that's not the pronoun I would use for someone calling themselves a 娘.

I've never asked but I would expect bentenmusume-san, based on the chosen name to be a woman from 弁天町.

 

[Toritoribe]

I think what confused me was what I was talking about yesterday; the distinction between a pronominal verb and a non-pronominal one. I wanted to know the difference between ついた and 触る. When I read, "virus infected hands", it became clear, ついた is pronominal and therefore is restricted to modifying 手 while 触る isn't and therefore is the main verb of the clause. That's what I was missing. The other question I was asking was how to determine which verb goes with which subject which was simply that a pronominal describes its associated noun and that's it while the main verb drives the whole clause.

It's important that I can identify pronominal verbs in order to parse sentences properly.

You already came across 客が少ない２月と８月 and ウイルスがついた手. Try to translate the following sentences for practice.

客が少ないお金しか使わなかったので、儲けはあまりなかった。

客が少ない期間にたくさんのお金を使った。

ある科学者がウイルスの遺伝子を操作してウイルスに手のような突起をつけた。そして、ウイルスがついた手でどんな動きをするかを顕微鏡で観察した。

 

[Zizka]

客が少ないお金しか使わなかったので、儲けはあまりなかった。
Because few customers used money, I couldn't make a profit.

I'll do them once at a time.

 

[Zizka]

客が少ない期間にたくさんのお金を使った。
Because the customers didn't have a lot of time they used a lot of money.
(That sentence doesn't make sense to me).

 

[SomeCallMeChris]

No. In the first half, remember that ない acts like an い adjective. 絵が青い壁に掛かっています。= "The picture is hanging on the blue wall".

In the second half, you dropped a word.

(That sentence doesn't make sense to me).

That's usually a sign that you've made a mistake.

Sometimes it's just difficult idiomatic usage, but double-check for mistakes first before searching for idiomatic usages.

 

[Zizka]

Do you mean no for both or just the second one?

 

[SomeCallMeChris]

客が少ないお金しか使わなかったので、儲けはあまりなかった。
Because few customers used money, I couldn't make a profit.

I was talking about this one.

I thought your comment about not making sense was an edit, I didn't notice you did another sentence.

客が少ない期間にたくさんのお金を使った。
Because the customers didn't have a lot of time they used a lot of money.

This is also not right. Where did you get "have" from?


What do you think your ESUs are in these sentences?

 

[Zizka]

Alright so let's approach this differently to make sure that I learn efficiently. Instead of simply giving the answer which I might get by guessing, I'm going to write down my stream of consciousness and then you can pinpoint where my reasoning is work. In other words, by identifying my mistakes in understanding the sentence I can learn the most from translating. I'll organize my thoughts in points to make things easier to read.

「 客が少ない期間にたくさんのお金を使った。」
★客: means guest in Japanese and it's the subject as indicated by が
★少ない: is an -i adjective and it means 'a little, insufficient' and it's modifying 期間, which means 'time'. So 'a little time'.
★使った: is the verb of the sentence conjugated in the past, so 'used'.
★お金: is a noun and means 'money'. It's also the direct object of the verb 使った as marked by を. So the guest use what? Money.
★たくさん means 'a lot' and it's linked to お金. So a lot of money.
★期間 is followed by に which indicates a point in time. But that doesn't make sense since there's no point in time identified so that can't be it.
★Regarding 期間 the only way I can translate it is 'to have time' which is wrong so I'm stuck.

This is what I have so far and why I'm stuck.

 

[SomeCallMeChris]

期間 is followed by に which indicates a point in time. But that doesn't make sense

No, it doesn't make sense that an amount of time ("a little time") would be marked as a point in time, but that is not the only use that に has.

Regarding 期間 the only way I can translate it is 'to have time' which is wrong so I'm stuck

It's wrong because に cannot mean "have".

客: means guest in Japanese and it's the subject as indicated by が

The subject of what? (It's not the subject of に because に is not a verb meaning 'to have'.)