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Learning Japanese through Translation

Zizka

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Hello!
I'm learning Japanese by playing DQ XI on the 3ds. In bold the Japanese text, in italic my understanding of it. Underneath that are comments and questions that I have.

覚えていますか？
Have you forgotten?

Ok, just to be clear. 覚えて is the conjugated form of the ichidan verb 覚える。
jisho.org gives me the following about the verb:


From what I understand, the present progressive is the English equivalent of an ongoing action. Does this mean that my translation should be:

Are you forgetting?
It sounds weird because I always pictured "forget" as a verb which is usually non-progressive (you either forget or you don't).

Am I missing something here? This is why I'm asking the question because the present progressive doesn't seem to provide an accurate translation.

あの日 ふたりで見た
The other day I saw two people.

二人 seems to never be written in kanji from what I've seen in the game so far.

ロトゼタシアの美しさい景色を。
A beautiful view of [proper noun here].

I can't seem to translate this one. I couldn't find anything about を used at the end of a sentence.

吸い込まれそうなほど 真っ青な空 。
Something about breathing and a deep blue sky.

Is 吸い込まれ the passive here? If so, why is the る missing. In takomoto (dictionary) it's written with a る at the end.

I don't understand the そう there. I looked it up in my dictionary but there were too many entries.

I'm thinking なほど is a particle compound but I couldn't find it. So it's just ほど then.


I just don't understand how it works with 吸い込まれそう here. Where's the approximation here?

夕焼けに染まった 茜色の海。
Everything was tainted by the sunset, the water is (was?) red.

生命のかがやきに満ちた 大樹の葉。
I don't understand this. I know there's the brightness of life: 生命のかがやき. To be full of the brightness of life? It's sound like a terrible translation. There' the leaf of the large tree there was well. Maybe that's what was filled with the brightness of life?

あなたと共に見た そのすべてが
今も 私の心に 焼き付いています。

You saw together with me and now it has also left a strong impression on me.

Doesn't sound right either.

何度読んでも すばらしい文章だ。
キミには せび この手紙の都合続きを
探してほしいんだ。

How many times have I read such a beautiful sentence.

I want you to find the circumstances in that letter.
 
Zizka said:
覚えていますか？
Have you forgotten?
Click to expand...
The -te iru form doesn't always express the present progressive tense. It's the present state resulting from the past action since 覚える is a punctual verb.

Zizka said:
あの日 ふたりで見た
The other day I saw two people.
Click to expand...
ふたり is not the object of 見た. Notice the function of で.

Zizka said:
ロトゼタシアの美しさい景色を。
A beautiful view of [proper noun here].
Click to expand...
There is a typo in the Japanese phrase.
Actually, the three lines so far is a single sentence. It's an inversion.

Zizka said:
吸い込まれそうなほど 真っ青な空 。
Something about breathing and a deep blue sky.
Click to expand...
You need to learn what form is attached to そう and ほど in the first place.

Zizka said:
夕焼けに染まった 茜色の海。
Everything was tainted by the sunset, the water is (was?) red.
Click to expand...
夕焼けに染まった modifies 茜色の海.

Ditto.

と doesn't indicate the subject. So, what is the subject? In other words, how do you know what the subject is in a sentence?

The first sentence is not a question.
There is a typo in the second line, too.


I'm afraid to point out this, but it seems too advanced for you to translate those sentences yet.
 
Toritoribe said:
The -te iru form doesn't always express the present progressive tense. It's the present state resulting from the past action since 覚える is a punctual verb.
Click to expand...
I don't understand what you mean by this. Could you clarify, I don't understand your explanation.
 
Your offer is the same as asking to write a whole chapter of a textbook. That's exactly why I said "it seems too advanced for you".
 
Ok, thanks anyway.
 
Just use a textbook to learn Japanese, then enjoy the game like a normal person.
 

I think this one is the one I<m looking for. From what I understand, the "state of being" refers to something being in a certain way at the moment. In other words, "Do you remember?" with a subtext of "right now".

Why not just write: 覚えます？ Wouldn't that have the same meaning as 覚えている?
 
Zizka said:
Why not just write: 覚えます？ Wouldn't that have the same meaning as 覚えている?
Click to expand...
Because that means (will) (you) remember? not (do) (you) remember?
 
Hello mdchachi,
I don't understand how you get the future from: 覚えます. From what I understand 覚えます is the polite form of 覚える. In my dictionary (takoboto), if I check the conjugation for 覚える, I get this:
覚える, 覚えます
oboeru, oboemasu
[does], will [do]

Since there are no adverbial clauses in this example, how do you know 覚えます implies the future as opposed to does+remember?
 
Yes, 覚える・覚えます means the same thing in terms of tense. That's not the issue.
I'm not a grammar nerd. I learned Japanese mainly by studying it off and on 10 years and speaking it for 20. In other words, at this point I've just remembered how it works and can't necessarily explain it. However I suspect it's because of what Toritoribe pointed out, that this is a "punctual verb."
Therefore 覚えている means the continued state of remembering.
Compare it to 食べている where おにぎりを食べている means "eating onigiri", おにぎりを食べる means either "I eat onigiri" (in general) or "I will eat onigiri" (sometime in the future).
Even if we treat 覚える in the same way it doesn't really make sense to say "I remember" (in general) as some sort of transaction like the act of eating is. So by process of elimination the only meaning that makes sense is the future tense "I will remember." There is no continued state of remembering implied with 覚える.
 
This is a good example why we repeatedly recommend getting a good textbook. Textbooks explain about the -te iru form by using several chapters and many pages. An on-line site is not enough even if it's really good. Dictionaries usually don't treat this kind of grammatical issues. It's basically for checking the meanings of words.

As mdchachi-san wrote, 覚える/覚えます expresses the future tense. It also can be the present tense, for instance 私はいつも紙に書いて漢字を覚えます I always remember kanji by writing them on a paper. This is a present habit.
 
I have another question:

ルイネロさん もう やめにしないかい？
Question 1:
It's about the かい there are the end. I looked it up on Google and I got:

This usage of 「かい」, in real life, is largely limited to male speakers of the Kanto region and even among those, they only use it with people that they know very well and that are as old as or younger than the speaker.

It would make sense in this context but I wanted to make sure.

Question 2:
I'm thinking the meaning of the sentence is something along the lines of: "Don't you think you've had enough (drinking)?"
やめ here is likely 止める。
So my question here is why is the ending missing? I Googled やめ but could only find inflected forms. Again, I'm thinking this is a colloquial thing where the ending was dropped. Am I right?

Question 3:
About this part:
「やめにしないかい」
I'm fairly certain this is する, the inflected form: しない (negative, present indicative).

Would I be right in saying that the に here is a particle which has the following function?"
Indicates the result of change or an impeding change.
 
Buy a textbook. Learn the basics.
 

You basically figured it out which is impressive for somebody trying to learn Japanese the hard way.
1) かい - is colloquial speech as described
2) Not colloquial. やめ is the stem form of やめる. The stem is used in various grammatical forms including this one which is the Verb-stem + にする. Your translation looks good. Of course I don't have the same context you have. Since I didn't know they were drinking I'd have translated it as "Won't you stop already?" or something like that.
3) Related to (2). Instead of する it's negative formしない. But it's still the same verb-stem + NISURU form.
 
Thanks!

Regarding this:
The stem is used in various grammatical forms including this one which is the Verb-stem + にする.
I was about to say there's nothing about that in Tae Kim's book but I just caught something at page 112 after checking:
Using する and なる with the に particle...
「やめにしない」
Which is exactly what this situation calls for.

The books says (p.115): You may be wondering how to use 「なる」and「する」with verbs since there's no way to directly modify a verb with another verb. The simple solution is to add a generic noun such as a generic event: こと or an appearance/manner: よう.

There are none of those in the sentence above. In all of the examples he provides, there's always either こと or よう to transform the verb into a noun clause. So this doesn't help me here. You can also use にする with nouns and na-adjectives here but that's not the case here either. Unless, of course, the verb stem is considered as a noun but I doubt that's the case.

So, I made some more research and found this and this. Couldn't find anything useful there either.

Unless I should interpret this construction as に and する instead of the single construction にする。Then I could research に further instead of trying to grasp the にする construction as a whole.
 
You really should get a good set of textbooks where all these grammatical forms are covered comprehensively. Believe it or not, it works better than trying to Google all these things. Also recommended is the dictionary of Japanese Grammar AND dictionary of advanced grammar. A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar: Seiichi Makino, Michio Tsutsui: 8601405255785: Amazon.com: Books
You can look up grammatical forms like this directly. It's even written in romaji which means beginners can quickly use it.
 
I just purchased 5 books on Amazon. I have A Guide to Japanese Grammar, A Dictionary to Basic Japanese Grammar, Key to Kanji: A Visual Story of 1100 Characters, A Dictionary of Japanese Particles, All About Japanese: A Handbook of Japanese Function Words.

Even if it's not covered on the web in great detail, there should be an entry about this somewhere.

What I don't understand is that if it's the function of making a decision about something, it's a construction used with a noun. Every single entry I've found on 4 different websites confirm this.

And yet it would fit nicely here if it were that function; It's a bartender speaking to a drunk. It'd be the perfect match to decide to stop drinking in that context.

Unless やめ is a gerund, in that case it'd fit perfectly. To decide to stop drinking.
 
Zizka said:
Unless, of course, the verb stem is considered as a noun but I doubt that's the case.
Click to expand...
Zizka said:
Unless やめ is a gerund, in that case it'd fit perfectly.
Click to expand...
It is exactly the case.
Incidentally, I already mentioned this in the post I provided you previously. You just missed it.
Toritoribe said:
Also, the -masu stem/i-form can work as a noun like "gerund" in English.
Click to expand...
Classifying ~ing forms in Japanese | Japan Forum


Are you going to ignore all my explanations about your questions except just the first one, and give up understanding the paragraph in your initial post, by the way?
 
@tariroribe: Ah yes, you did mention it. I missed it.
I read the post you linked again.

From what I understand from it, the function of the ーている construction changes depending with the type of verbs it is used with.

You mention two types of verbs:
1. けいぞくどうし: durative verbs.
2. しゅんかんどうし: punctual verbs.

I looked up punctual verbs and read the wiki about it.

From what I understand from your message in the other thread, I should figure whether 止める is a punctual or durative as it will determine the function of ーている.

Back to my clause:
「やめにしないかい」
I don't think it's the present progressive here. Therefore, stop isn't a durative verb but rather punctual one. So, to put it in your words: ''the present state resulting from the past action''.

So how about this:
Why don't you stop drinking? (with the implication that this is the result of the action in the past).

@mdchachi: Thank you for the link. I have some questions about it but I'll ask them later.

@Toritoribe
(I'm not giving up on the first paragraph. I didn't feel comfortable discussing it further because you seemed to say: ''This is too hard for you, just get a textbook and leave me alone.'' Which might have been a wrong impression on my part).
 
You are misunderstanding a very basic fact. しない is just a negative form of する as mdchachi-san already pointed out previously. It has nothing to do with the -te iru form, or whether やめる is punctual or durative, either.
やめ is a noun form of the verb やめる "to stop", i.e., the English equivalent of やめ is the gerund "stopping". Thus, the literal translation of やめにする is "to do/make something into the state of stopping" or like that, and as a result, the meaning is almost the same as やめる "to stop", as in the example sentences in the dictionary mdchachi-san quoted. There is no mention for "drinking" in the original Japanese sentence. Only people who know the context can interpret it as "stop drinking".

Textbooks are not a reference book. You are using them without knowing basic grammar such like conjugation forms. Read through a good textbook like Genki, and learn the basics along the order the textbook gives before trying to translate those kinds of sentences. Your way of learning is incredibly inefficient. Indeed, you might be able to learn Japanese in that way, but we have been seeing many people trying to learn like that, and giving up learning after all so far.
 
やめ is a noun form of the verb やめる "to stop"
Ok, it's always like this, correct?

Q1. For instance, if I take 食べる and remove the る, then I end up with the gerund form of the verb, therefore an "eating" equivalent?

Q2. How does it relate to the explanation mentioned A Basic Dictionary of Japanese Grammar? Is it because it's more advanced and therefore not covered as something basic?

The example given is (p.311):
私は このアパートにする。
I've decided on this apartment.

The dictionary really focuses on the structure being used as: a decision to make something... But it's something we haven't discussed yet. I'm curious about that.
Now back to the first message and the explanations provided (part of it):

So, what is the subject? In other words, how do you know what the subject is in a sentence?
That's a pretty broad question. I think it's sometimes implied in the context, at other times it'd be indicated by a grammatical particle, such as が。

(Regarding my method, I've learned two languages that way so rest assured I have no intention of giving up. I really enjoy doing this which in turn is great for motivation. I realize some people will be against it as it's unconventional but, as they say, different strokes for different folks.)[/hr]
 
1)
The -masu stem is not always the same as "the dictionary form - る". This rule applies only to ichidan verbs, thus, for instance the -masu stem of a godan verb はしる "to run" is はしり, not はし.
Anyway, it's not always, as I wrote "can work as a noun" in the other thread. 食べ is rarely used as a noun. Instead, 食い（くい）, which is the -masu stem of another verb "to eat" 食う（くう）, is often used as the noun "eating", e.g. 早食い, 大食い, 飲み食い, 踊り食い, etc..

2)
I referred to goo dictionary in this post, which gave the English translation of やめにする and Japanese example sentences using it. Did you really read all the links we provided?
 
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