Need a word or phrase translated?

[Apple Bomb]

ひさびさ

I was wondering if someone could help me clarify two very simple things I constantly hear in normal spoken Japanese. One is something like 「なんだけ」or
「なんでだけ」. The other is 「さ」 as a sentence ender.

 

[Buntaro]

「なんだけ」 is the "tip of the tongue" phenomenon.

「さ」 is just an inflection, usually used in female Japanese, kind of like, "Oh man, I'd...." See this post:

Ending things with 'sa' | Japan Forum

 

[Apple Bomb]

どうもありがとうございました。

 

[Elizabeth]

「なんだけ」 is the "tip of the tongue" phenomenon.

It is ??? :?

 

[undrentide]

I was wondering if someone could help me clarify two very simple things I constantly hear in normal spoken Japanese. One is something like 「なんだけ」or
「なんでだけ」.

I think it is 「なんだっけ」 and 「なんでだっけ」.
「なんだっけ」 is "what was it?" In casual conversation, one may say this when one cannot remember something - something he just said or something they were talking about, etc.
「なんでだっけ」 the only difference is なんで instead of なん（=なに）, in this case skeaker is wondering "why" - the reason he once know but cannot remember.

 

[epigene]

It is ??? :?

I think he meant to say: "It's on the tip of my tongue!"

 

[Cue]

Yeah, for example:

"ねぇ、それ取ってくれる？ えーっと何だっけ、ほら、それだよ、、、"
"Hey, can you pass me that...err, what do you call it?" (?? I'm not sure of my English translation, though)
My dictionary says "whatchamacallit" or something like that.

Another example:
"昨日君が一緒にいたあの女の子の名前、なんだっけ？"
"What was that girl's name again? The one you were with yesterday."

You may not know what it's called, or you do know but it just slipped your mind.

and as to なんでだっけ
What was the reason again?
For instance, 今日仕事休み？なんでだっけ？("you're off today? I might have asked you this before but can you tell me why you have off today again?")

...Looks like undrentide san has already explained it but... I'll post this anyway. ^^;

I think he meant to say: "It's on the tip of my tongue!"

Ahhh! That's a nice expression! Thank you.

 

[Jayern]

how do you say, "Ive been busy"

 

[Buntaro]

"I've been busy."

--> Watashi wa saikin isogashii desu.

 

[Elizabeth]

"I've been busy."
--> Watashi wa saikin isogashii desu.

Saikin zutto isogashii desu.
Saikin (totemo) isogashikutene...

These three are clear, precise and simple Japanese, although the past tense
can also be used depending on the context.

 

[Jayern]

Thanks. I don't really understand how to use past tense in a sentence

 

[Buntaro]

Jayern,

You have brought up one of my favorite topics -- the translating of English's Present Perfect into and out of Japanese.

Simple Past: I ate dinner.

Present Perfect: I have eaten dinner.

The simple fact is that there is no Present Perfect in Japanese. So, they have specific ways of translating such sentences into and out of Japanese.

One way to do it is to use the word "saikin". Saikin means recently. Simply putting the word saikin into a sentence turns that sentence into the Present Perfect counterpart of the target English sentence.

Watashi wa isogashii desu. --> I am busy.

Watashi wa saikin isogashii desu. --> I have been busy recently.

There are many, many other situations where Present Perfect is translated into and out of Japanese. This "saikin" situation is just one.

 

[Elizabeth]

thxs. I dont really understand how to use past tense in a sentence

You wanted it to indicate you are still busy, right ? In English of course "I've been busy" doesn't necessarily imply that one way or the other. In Japanese, though, if you were tied up and things were really crazy the first four days of the week but now that is over the past tense can work and is still loosely translated as been busy.

 

[Fuumei]

選んでおいた土産物が自宅に届いているというサービスだ.
This has been bugging me, so hopefully someone can refresh my memory. The "届いている" here means "arrives" correct? Not, "has been arriving" or "arriving" This may tie in to the above conversation about present perfect, too. I haven't yet mastered the "ている" form yet unfortunately. Can someone clear this up? It's much appreciated.

 

[Elizabeth]

選んでおいた土産物が自宅に届いているというサービスだ.
This has been bugging me, so hopefully someone can refresh my memory. The "届いている" here means "arrives" correct? Not, "has been arriving" or "arriving" This may tie in to the above conversation about present perfect, too. I haven't yet mastered the "ている" form yet unfortunately. Can someone clear this up? It's much appreciated.

Has reached/has arrived....

 

[Glenn]

I think it gets the "habitual action" interpretation here, because it's describing the service -- i.e., "it's a service that delivers souvenirs that you've selected to your home."

 

[Elizabeth]

I think it gets the "habitual action" interpretation here, because it's describing the service -- i.e., "it's a service that delivers souvenirs that you've selected to your home."

Oh, yes that makes much more sense. I can't believe no one corrected it until now, all these hours, and even days, later !!! ☺

I suppose though it could also have been 届く in the dictionary form.

 

[Fuumei]

I think it gets the "habitual action" interpretation here, because it's describing the service -- i.e., "it's a service that delivers souvenirs that you've selected to your home."

Ahh.. I've read nothing on that yet, thanks for pointing that out. I'll keep that in mind then to make things easier when it comes to the "te iru" form.

-----
"Anata no sunde ita machi wa, dono youni kawarimashita ka"

Sorry for the lack of kanji, but since there weren't any to begin with, I'll just leave it as is without trying to put in the kanji -- since I may assume the wrong one.

Anyway, this usage of "youni" is meaning what? I've never seen it used like this, (with dono I mean).

"Michi ga konde kimashita" As for this sentence, I assume this means "The road came to be crowded"?

 

[Elizabeth]

Ahh.. I've read nothing on that yet, thanks for pointing that out. I'll keep that in mind then to make things easier when it comes to the "te iru" form.

-----
"Anata no sunde ita machi wa, dono youni kawarimashita ka"

Sorry for the lack of kanji, but since there weren't any to begin with, I'll just leave it as is without trying to put in the kanji -- since I may assume the wrong one.

Anyway, this usage of "youni" is meaning what? I've never seen it used like this, (with dono I mean).

Dono youni should be in the dictionary. It means how or in what way.

"Michi ga konde kimashita" As for this sentence, I assume this means "The road came to be crowded"?

Yes, I would say. That road became/grew crowded. ☝

 

[Fuumei]

Dono youni should be in the dictionary. It means how or in what way.:

知らなかった... 有り難うございます

 

[Glenn]

And it's cousin どのような is the adjectival form, often contracted to どんな. This follows the ko-so-a-do series, by the way.

 

[Wanderer]

Hello.

I tried to translate this sentence:
"Always, always alone in the eternity"
to japanese:
"Zutto, zutto hitori eien no naka ni"
but i'm not sure if its correct. Could you tell me?
Also, would it be any difference if i use "itsumo" instead of "zutto" or "eien ni" instead od "eien no naka ni"?

Thanks for any help

 

[undrentide]

選んでおいた土産物が自宅に届いているというサービスだ.
This has been bugging me, so hopefully someone can refresh my memory. The "届いている" here means "arrives" correct? Not, "has been arriving" or "arriving" This may tie in to the above conversation about present perfect, too. I haven't yet mastered the "ている" form yet unfortunately. Can someone clear this up? It's much appreciated.

Has reached/has arrived....

I think it gets the "habitual action" interpretation here, because it's describing the service -- i.e., "it's a service that delivers souvenirs that you've selected to your home."

I feel that 届いている in this sentence is closer to the perfect tense.
届いた（completion）＋いる (status)
To me the sentence sounds like:
It's a service that the souvenir you selected will have been already delivered (by the time you get home from holiday).
(Literal translation would be "it's a service that the souvenir you'd selected has already been delivered by the time you got home from holiday" even though it is general statement, not talking about the past or something already happened.)
Recently I'm beginning to think that what we normally call present/past in Japanese is actually just "something not completed(or in progress)"/"something already completed". (*)
People say Japanese language has no future tense, just past and present tense, I think it is because "not completed" covers both future and present while "competed" covers the past.

In English language, the point of view is fixed timewise. So when one wants to talk about what will happen after something that is going to happen, one has to use future perfect.
In Japanese language, the point of view is not fixed on one point - when one is talking about the future event, one can state it as something that has already happened (選んでおいた in the above sentence) and the point of view is already in the future and things from the point of view are something "already completed".

Maybe the above explanation sounds like nonsense, I'm afraid, but if you can imagine a camera work on a rail, it is a little bit easier to understand - in case of English, the camera is fixed on one point ("now" or "present"), shooting all the event from that point. Things behind that point are all "past" while things ahead are all "future".
Whereas in Japanese, the camera moves quite freely - if the camera goes up to the future events, zooming them up, they can be regarded something already "behind".


Sorry the above explanation may not be appropriate for beginners to understand the basic grammar, but it might help to understand the difference between English and Japanese "tense" (hopefully.)

(*) note: I'm only talking about the grammar/expression, not having future tense does not mean we don't have a concept of the future, for instance.

 

[undrentide]

Hello.

I tried to translate this sentence:
"Always, always alone in the eternity"
to japanese:
"Zutto, zutto hitori eien no naka ni"
but i'm not sure if its correct. Could you tell me?
Also, would it be any difference if i use "itsumo" instead of "zutto" or "eien ni" instead od "eien no naka ni"?

Thanks for any help

If your "in the eternity" means the same thing as "eternally", then "eien ni" might sound more natural.
You can replace zutto with itsumo, but in this kind of sentence, I think zutto fits better.
Both "itsumo" and "zutto" can be translated as "always" but while "itsumo" can be used to express something is happening normally, or habutially, while "zutto" means something stays in the state for good.

I think there are more than one interpretation of such a simple phrase like "Always, always alone in the eternity". So there are many different ways to express it in Japanese depending on the context, or what you want to express/emphasize.

"Zutto, zutto hitori eien no naka ni" is good and makes sense, it sounds like a part of a poem or something - it has a mid-sentence feeling.

If you want to focus on being "alone", you might also say;
"zutto, zutto, eien ni hitori(kiri/bocchi)."
Hitorikiri and hitoribocchi is more strong (and rather colloquial) expression for "alone".

 

[Fuumei]

お前と私は見ている
I found this usage of "と" rather curious. Can this be translated as saying "I'm seeing you as me"? I came across another sentence with the same kind of "と" earlier with this: パトカーとタクシーを間違っていた. "I mistook a patrol car as a taxi". Any help would be appreciated. Or maybe I'm trying to read too much into the translation...