How to read Japanese sentences?

Gollums9 · 1 Nov 2021

Hi,
I've been studying some japanese, hoping to start learning the language again after a very long break. I took private lessons in japanese for 8 years, but that was two decades ago, and while I learned all the basic moods and even I became quite fluent in reading kanjis, it looks like I never quite intuitively got to the know-how of the sentences structure of japanese. While translating a japanese wikipedia article, for instance, the sentence structure makes no sense to me. The order of longer sentences tends to come out all backwards compared to english. When trying to figure out why this is, I thought the most obvious reason would be that english subordinate clauses appear as participles in japanese (in addition to some clause parts being inverted). However, later I read that there is no participle in japanese. So what can be the adequate way to explain the difference? I'm pretty advanced in linguistics, having mastered english, swedish, finnish, french, and even some italian and latin, with added greek studies (the most easy language to translate to english in my opinion!), so the best way to approach my issue might be in linguistic terms.

mdchachi · 1 Nov 2021

It might be helpful to post a sentence you're having trouble with and let us know where you're getting stuck.

mdchachi · 2 Nov 2021

Gollums9, here's the sentence you posted on my profile. We can take at look at it in this forum thread here.

"70年代以降は従来のパッシブベースに比してノイズが少なく周波数帯域が広いミュージックマンやスペクター、EMG、バルトリーニTCTに代表されるプリアンプ回路やアクティブピックアップを持ったアクティブベースも普及している。"
"Since the 1970s, active basses with preamplifier circuits and active pickups such as Music Man, Specter, EMG, and Bartolini TCT, which have less noise and a wider frequency band than conventional passive basses, have become widespread."

It looks to me like you translated it correctly. Which part is confusing to you?

Toritoribe · 3 Nov 2021

The problem of the example sentence is that the structure is ambiguous and it's possible to parse the sentence in several ways. For example, 従来のパッシブベースに比してノイズが少なく周波数帯域が広い can modify just ミュージックマン, the list of nouns ミュージックマンやスペクター、EMG、バルトリーニTCT, プリアンプ回路 or アクティブベース. All interpretations are grammatically possible, so you need to translate it from the context.

As mdchachi-san wrote, your translation seems correct. Judging from the context, 従来のパッシブベースに比してノイズが少なく周波数帯域が広い would modify アクティブベース (and people who have knowledge about the topic would be able to get the meaning correctly relatively easily).

How about the following revised version? It's easier to understand than the original, isn't it?

70年代以降は、ミュージックマンやスペクター、EMG、バルトリーニTCTに代表されるように、従来のパッシブベースに比してノイズが少なく周波数帯域が広い、プリアンプ回路やアクティブピックアップを持ったアクティブベースも普及している。

mdchachi · 3 Nov 2021

@Gollums9 please try again. I don't know how the thread got locked but I unlocked it.

Gollums9 · 3 Nov 2021

Ok, thanks y'all! I'll see later this week if I can find a better example which I was browsing on my work desktop. One which read pretty much backwards compared to english, with very frequent use of "と" and some passive construction using "の".

Toritoribe said:
How about the following revised version? It's easier to understand than the original, isn't it?

70年代以降は、ミュージックマンやスペクター、EMG、バルトリーニTCTに代表されるように、従来のパッシブベースに比してノイズが少なく周波数帯域が広い、プリアンプ回路やアクティブピックアップを~~持ったアクティブベースも普及している~~。

... "普及している", "Active basses with circuits and active pickups {are / have become} also widespread". Is it helpful to think of this in terms of the accusative case, similarly to "Active basses have been made widespread". (For english speakers who might not intuitively understand the accusative, perhaps try think of it in an active clause as any object with an definitive article in front of it,; also goes for pronouns, e. g. "I met him".

The partitive case is far simpler than the accusative, in every language really.

It's been a very long time since I seriously studied japanese, I've even forgot most of the kanas before re-learning them, the reason I quit was because reading kanjis was very time-consuming as there was no google translate back then.

mdchachi · 3 Nov 2021

Gollums9 said:
It's been a very long time since I seriously studied japanese, I've even forgot most of the kanas before re-learning them, the reason I quit was because reading kanjis was very time-consuming as there was no google translate back then.

Indeed. I gave up on Japanese 20 years ago. Ironically I use Japanese every day now both at work and home. Very grateful for the modern technology crutches.

Gollums9 · 3 Nov 2021

Well, ultimately I use wiktionary, because google translate can be very ambiguous. Learned french by typing almost every single word I read, individually, into wiktionary. I read at least three books this way although I also made comparisons to english copies.

Toritoribe · 3 Nov 2021

Gollums9 said:
... "普及している", "Active basses with circuits and active pickups {are / have become} also widespread". Is it helpful to think of this in terms of the accusative case, similarly to "Active basses have been made widespread". (For english speakers who might not intuitively understand the accusative, perhaps try think of it in an active clause as any object with an definitive article in front of it,; also goes for pronouns, e. g. "I met him".

プリアンプ回路やアクティブピックアップ is the object of 持った. That's why を is attached to this noun phrase. Thus, the literal translation is "Active basses that have circuits and active pickups {are / have become} also widespread".

"Active basses have been made widespread" is corresponding to アクティブベースも普及させられている.

Gollums9 · 3 Nov 2021

Toritoribe said:
プリアンプ回路やアクティブピックアップ is the object of 持った. That's why を is attached to this noun phrase. Thus, the literal translation is "Active basses that have circuits and active pickups {are / have become} also widespread".

"Active basses have been made widespread" is corresponding to アクティブベースも普及させられている.

Yeah, を as accusative was one of those things which stuck with me. Though I'm also thinking if there is some correspondence to accusative as to the main clause.

Toritoribe · 3 Nov 2021

Well, that interpretation is not correct. プリアンプ回路やアクティブピックアップ has nothing to do with the main verb 普及している grammatically. It's that "preamplifier circuits and active pickups" are widespread just because the subject "active basses" are widespread, and the active basses have preamplifier circuits and active pickups. Thus, the reason is semantic/contextual, not grammatical.

Please refer to the following example sentences.

プリアンプ回路やアクティブピックアップを持たないアクティブベースが普及している。
プリアンプ回路やアクティブピックアップを外したアクティブベースが普及している。

In these examples, although both プリアンプ回路やアクティブピックアップを and the main verb 普及している are not changed from the original, these sentences mean that preamplifier circuits and active pickups are not widespread.

Here's another example.

プリアンプ回路やアクティブピックアップがあるアクティブベースが普及している。

プリアンプ回路やアクティブピックアップ is not accusative but nominative here since it's the subject of ある. (Incidentally, の also can be used instead of が. Or it's more likely that の is preferred here because of avoiding using が twice. This の is for indicating the subject in a modifying clause, not for possession. This usage of の has something to do with 'some passive construction using "の"' you mentioned, by any chance?)

This is similar to the relation between the case of a noun in a relative clause and the main verb of the sentence in English.

Active basses that have circuits and active pickups are widespread.
Active basses in which circuits and active pickups exist are widespread.

As you can see, the case of "circuits and active pickups", i.e., accusative "have circuits and active" vs. nominative "circuits and active pickups exist", is determined only by the factors in the relative clause (e.g. the semantic relation between the verb and nouns, the type of the verb, etc.), not by the main verb of the sentence "are widespread".

As I already pointed out, the reason why を is attached to プリアンプ回路やアクティブピックアップ in the original sentence is just because it's the object of 持った, and it has nothing to do with the main verb 普及している. (In the first place, 普及している performs as an intransitive verb here, so it doesn't have the object.)

Gollums9 · 4 Nov 2021

Toritoribe said:
Well, that interpretation is not correct. プリアンプ回路やアクティブピックアップ has nothing to do with the main verb 普及している

I know it doesn't. I was wondering about "アクティブベースも普及している, without the noun phrase. If it would have been "Active basses have been made widespread", then the active form of that, "have made active basses widespread", independently of that noun phrase, can correspond to accusative in languages such as latin and finnish where the accusative (unlike english) is very explicit. But I was probably wrong, as it now seems to me neither the case nor the numerus (singular or plural) of "active basses" is explicit in japanese. Whether it's "active bass" or "active basses" isn't explicitly stated in japanese, I'm not sure if it even matters.

Toritoribe said:
grammatically. It's that "preamplifier circuits and active pickups" are widespread just because the subject "active basses" are widespread, and the active basses have preamplifier circuits and active pickups. Thus, the reason is semantic/contextual, not grammatical.

Please refer to the following example sentences.

プリアンプ回路やアクティブピックアップを持たないアクティブベースが普及している。
プリアンプ回路やアクティブピックアップを外したアクティブベースが普及している。

In these examples, although both プリアンプ回路やアクティブピックアップを and the main verb 普及している are not changed from the original, these sentences mean that preamplifier circuits and active pickups are not widespread.

Here's another example.

プリアンプ回路やアクティブピックアップがあるアクティブベースが普及している。

プリアンプ回路やアクティブピックアップ is not accusative but nominative here since it's the subject of ある. (Incidentally, の also can be used instead of が. Or it's more likely that の is preferred here because of avoiding using が twice. This の is for indicating the subject in a modifying clause, not for possession. This usage of の has something to do with 'some passive construction using "の"' you mentioned, by any chance?)

I'll see if I can find the article later this week. This is great councel btw, but like I said above, this might be translated to accusative in some languages (latin and finnish), but there is no reason for that in japanese.

Toritoribe said:
This is similar to the relation between the case of a noun in a relative clause and the main verb of the sentence in English.

Active basses that have circuits and active pickups are widespread.
Active basses in which circuits and active pickups exist are widespread.

As you can see, the case of "circuits and active pickups", i.e., accusative "have circuits and active" vs. nominative "circuits and active pickups exist", is determined only by the factors in the relative clause (e.g. the semantic relation between the verb and nouns, the type of the verb, etc.), not by the main verb of the sentence "are widespread".

As I already pointed out, the reason why を is attached to プリアンプ回路やアクティブピックアップ in the original sentence is just because it's the object of 持った, and it has nothing to do with the main verb 普及している. (In the first place, 普及している performs as an intransitive verb here, so it doesn't have the object.)

Toritoribe · 4 Nov 2021

Gollums9 said:
If it would have been "Active basses have been made widespread", then the active form of that, "have made active basses widespread", independently of that noun phrase, can correspond to accusative in languages such as latin and finnish where the accusative (unlike english) is very explicit.

アクティブベース can be accusative in アクティブベースも普及している in an appropriate context since 1) 普及する can be both transitive and intransitive, and 2) the particles を and が disappear behind も. Thus, アクティブベースも普及している also can be a variation of アクティブベースを普及している. In this case, the subject/agent(a musical instrument manufacturer, for example) is omitted because it's obvious from the context. The sentence means "the subject is spreading active basses", not "active basses have been made widespread", though.

Gollums9 · 7 Nov 2021

Toritoribe said:
アクティブベース can be accusative in アクティブベースも普及している in an appropriate context since 1) 普及する can be both transitive and intransitive, and 2) the particles を and が disappear behind も. Thus, アクティブベースも普及している also can be a variation of アクティブベースを普及している. In this case, the subject/agent(a musical instrument manufacturer, for example) is omitted because it's obvious from the context. The sentence means "the subject is spreading active basses", not "active basses have been made widespread", though.

To figure out whether the english translation corresponds to accusative, I tested whether it conformed to "the spread of the active bass" or the "spread of active basses", and the answer I found was affirmative.

I can't remember if the following was the example I was looking for, but last week I had been trying to read the synopsis for the movie "Venom" in japanese, and I found the order of the sentence very different from english.

サンフランシスコで記者として働いていたエディ・ブロックは、ライフ財団が死者を出すほど危険な人体実験をホームレスを利用して行っていることを知り、恋人であるアン・ウェイングのパソコンから得た情報を基にライフ財団のリーダーであるカールトン・ドレイクに実験のことを問い詰めるが、ライフ財団の根回しにより会社をクビになり、それに巻き込まれる形でアンも職を追われたため、仕事と恋人の両方を失う。

(Word-by-word translation: サンフランシスコ (San Fransisco) で記者 (reporter) として働いていた (working) エディ・ブロック (Eddie Brock) は、ライフ財団 (Life Foundation) が死者を出す (deadly) ほど (as well as) 危険な dangerous) 人体実験 (human corporal experiment) をホームレス (the homeless) を利用して行って (carry out using) いることを知り (knowing that)、恋人である (Girlfriend) アン・ウェイング (Anne Weyling) のパソコン (computer) から (of) 得た (gotten) 情報を (information) 基 (database) にライフ財団 (Life Foundation) のリーダーである (leader) カールトン・ドレイク (Carlton Drake) に実験 (experiment) のこと (this) を問い (question) 詰める (pose/ask) が (however)、ライフ財団 (Life Foundation) の根回しにより (uprooting that ?) 会社 (society/company) をクビになり (is fired) 、それ (this) に巻き込まれる (be implicated) 形 (form) でアン (Anne) も職 work を追わ (chased) れた(because) ため (for) 、仕事 (work) と恋人 (lover) の両方 (both) を失う (loses)。

Attempted translation:
Eddie Brock, who worked as a reporter in San Francisco, learns from his girlfriend Anne Weying's computer that the Life Foundation has been using homeless people to conduct deadly, dangerous human experiments. Based on the data, he interrogates Carlton Drake, the leader of the Life Foundation, about the experiment, however for (?????) the uprooting of Life Foundation with Anne being implicated is chased away from t company, so she loses both work and lover.

I'm sure I could understand such attributive structures etc. in shorter clauses..For instance, "has been using homeless people to conduct..." makes perfectly sense to me, but there are so many such nested attributive structures that I kinda lose the feel of it. Parts of the text could be transformed into a familiar structure such as participle to get the order of the parts a little closer to the original, but I don't know other ways how to adjust my thinking to deal with these nested attributive structures.

bentenmusume · 7 Nov 2021

You talk about struggling with attributive structures, but you seem to be understanding the first part of the passage just fine. I'm not really sure what advice I can give here except that you just need to read more and get comfortable with it, since this is how the Japanese language is expressed.

As for the part including and after the (?????), you're misunderstanding it for a couple of reasons:

- 根回し is an idiom that means "behind-the-scenes manuevering", not "uprooting".
- You're not capturing クビになる in your translation (also, the implied subject here is Eddie).
- 巻き込む doesn't "implicated" here, it's talking about Anne getting caught up in the Life Foundation's retaliation against Eddie.
- The subject of the entire last bit is Eddie, not Anne. Anne is mentioned in a passive sense ("...and with Anne also being forced out of her position...")

But, yes, Japanese sentence order is very different from English. That's just one of the things you have to get comfortable with through repeated exposure over time. Fortunately, it seems like you already have a fairly decent understanding of things.

(edited to add: I would also advise against doing those literal word-by-word breakdowns with English translations. Doing so is just going to encourage you to keep thinking in English rather than processing and understanding what you're reading in terms of the Japanese itself.)

Gollums9 · 7 Nov 2021

Well, my maternal language is finnish, its frequently favors participle over relative clauses, highly affecting the sentence order, but japanese is very very different. My japanese teacher taught me many things and made me great at pronounciation, but these nested structures was not one of them. Of course french and latin word order is different to english too, but "attributive structures" are similar order to english. One way for me of thinking japanese is which parts of the sentence are the "active" parts and which are not. The agent is rarely active, the rest of the sentence (incl. particles) are active in the sense that they wholly modify the agent.

Toritoribe · 7 Nov 2021

To supplement;

Gollums9 said:
サンフランシスコで記者として働いていたエディ・ブロックは、ライフ財団が死者を出すほど危険な人体実験をホームレスを利用して行っていることを知り、

This line doesn't mean that he got the information of the experiment from Ann's computer. As explained in the following part, where you translated "based on the data", Eddie used the data in her computer to interrogate Carlton Drake.

Gollums9 said:
職 work を追わ (chased) れた(because) ため (for) 、

ため doesn't mean "for/in order to~" here. Why did you write "because" after (追わ)れた? Do you understand the difference between "present form of verb + ため " and "past form of verb + ため"?

職を追われる is a set phrase. 追う doesn't mean "to chase" here.

The -masu stem of a verb/stem of an adjective at the end of a clause is often used just to continue the clauses like "and", so it might be sometimes helpful to separate a long sentence into several short sentences to simplify the structure.

サンフランシスコで記者として働いていたエディ・ブロックは、ライフ財団が死者を出すほど危険な人体実験をホームレスを利用して行っていることを知る。

（彼は）恋人であるアン・ウェイングのパソコンから得た情報を基にライフ財団のリーダーであるカールトン・ドレイクに実験のことを問い詰める。

だが、（彼は）ライフ財団の根回しにより会社をクビになる。

それに巻き込まれる形でアンも職を追われたため、（彼は）仕事と恋人の両方を失う。

Gollums9 · 7 Nov 2021

Thanks Toritoribe, that's very helpful to see the order of the parts. The first example shows that the use of を is more varied than I remembered. (I only remembered being taught を as an accusative, but as I'm using google translate, the result is not accusative but partitive. (I first translated it to french, where the partitive ("de(s)", "en") and accusative (le/la) are easily distinguishable. English partitive is more difficult to unerstand,)

Google translate butchers the third example. Maybe should look for another tranlator.

For some reason, most of the learning material was originally taught to me in the -masu form which my teacher called "formal speech". Only in the very end of the lessons she told me about "aru", "miru", "noru" etc. but didn't say anything about them except one is formal and the other is informal.

Toritoribe · 7 Nov 2021

You seems to be confusing "-masu stem" with "-masu form". The former refers to a conjugation form of verbs. Although Wikipedia suggests that "masu form" can be used as "-masu stem", the latter is mostly for "-masu stem + ます". The -masu stems I was talking about are 行っていることを知り、 and クビになり、 in the original sentence.

-masu stem/連用形 Ren'yōkei/conjunctive form/stem form/masu form/i form/continuative form

Japanese conjugation - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I've just realized that there are indeed many を in the first clause. In most cases, を is connected to the verb that appears right after it. The only exception is 人体実験を and 行っている, where 利用して is inserted between them, but the two consecutive objects 人体実験をホームレスを show this irregularity.

死者を出す

危険な人体実験をホームレスを利用して行っている -->ホームレスを利用して危険な人体実験を行っている
ホームレスを利用する
人体実験を行っている

～ことを知る

When ホームレス is mentioned previously and it means "the homeless person/people", a demonstrative would be attached to the word like その/この/あのホームレス.

Gollums9 · 7 Nov 2021

(I meant the difference between english partitive and english accusative is more difficult to understand than french, latin, finnish etc . English partitive is pretty easy to see ("They use homeless people for experiments"), whereas "the homeless people" methinks can be either partitive or accusative depending on context. "They use the homeless people for experiments" is partitive, there is a invisible "of"-word there. "They captured the homeless people." is accusative. I haven't read this anywhere but it seems like common sense.)

Toritoribe said:
ため doesn't mean "for/in order to~" here. Why did you write "because" after (追わ)れた? Do you understand the difference between "present form of verb + ため " and "past form of verb + ため"?

Google translate and wiktionary. I'm nowadays pretty clueless without them.

Toritoribe · 7 Nov 2021

Gollums9 said:
(I meant the difference between english partitive and english accusative is more difficult to understand than french, latin, finnish etc . English partitive is pretty easy to see ("They use homeless people for experiments"), whereas "the homeless people" methinks can be either partitive or accusative depending on context. "They use the homeless people for experiments" is partitive, there is a invisible "of"-word there. "They captured the homeless people." is accusative. I haven't read this anywhere but it seems like common sense.)

Even for those examples, other interpretations can be possible depending on the context, aren't they? There can be a context where "They use the homeless people for experiments" can be accusative, and also where "They captured the homeless people." can be partitive, no?

Anyway, back to Japanese language, は/が things would be needed to consider for partitive/accusative issue.

Gollums9 said:
Google translate and wiktionary. I'm nowadays pretty clueless without them.

ため means "because" here, not "for/in order to~". This subordinate clause shows the cause/reason why he lost both his job and girlfriend.

Then, you are translating Japanese sentences without parsing the sentence structure?

Gollums9 · 7 Nov 2021

Toritoribe said:
Even for those examples, other interpretations can be possible depending on the context, aren't they? There can be a context where "They use the homeless people for experiments" can be accusative, and also where "They captured the homeless people." can be partitive, no?

I guess, but the partitive example was not "They use the homeless people for experiments", it was "They use homeless people for experiments". (without "the")

Toritoribe said:
Then, you are translating Japanese sentences without parsing the sentence structure?

I'm trying to figure out the sentence structure with some rudimentary knowledge of japanese, remember, it's been 20 years since I took japanese lessons. Wiktionary is great but I need to fill some large gaps, I mean there are online resources but I need to incubate on my approach.

Toritoribe · 8 Nov 2021

I think it's not wrong to use machine translators for reference. Wiktionary is not bad, either, but dictionaries that that explains definitions with example sentences like weblio, goo or jisho.org would be also helpful.

英和辞典・和英辞典 - Weblio辞書

約504万語収録の英和辞典・和英辞典。英語のイディオムや熟語も対応している他、英語の発音を音声でも提供。無料で使える日本最大級のオンライン英語辞書サービス。

ejje.weblio.jp

goo

NTTドコモが運営するポータルサイト「goo」。今話題のニュースやドコモのキャンペーン、サービス紹介などお役立ちコンテンツを展開しています。

dictionary.goo.ne.jp

Jisho.org: Japanese Dictionary

jisho.org

Sentence structures like a clause using ため are hard to interpret just with dictionaries since dictionaries usually don't explain about grammatical structures. I think it's better to use reference sites like imabi.

e.g. explanation about ため for both "for/in order to~" and "because"

IMABI

A comprehensive Japanese learning resource which goes from zero knowledge to classical language.

www.imabi.net

IMABI

A comprehensive Japanese learning resource which goes from zero knowledge to classical language.

www.imabi.net

How to read Japanese sentences?

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