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Trin

Kouhai
19 Sep 2015
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Hello, all. I recently bought a book called " Breaking in Japanese Literature." I bought it because I felt in needed to practice reading Japanese as I feel I am OK at speaking, hearing, and writing it, but pretty poor at reading. Anyway I came across this sentence and it has grammar I do not know. The name of this story is " The First Night" by Natsume Soseki.

腕組をして枕元座っている、仰向寝た女、静かな声でもう死にますという。The translation is "I was sitting with my arms crossed by the bedside of a woman. She was lying on her back. In a gentle voice she said she was about to die." The is not a literal translation, but it is more or less right. My question is about と、に、が, I have no idea what these particles are doing. Could someone please help. よろしくお願いします。じゃ、また。
 
I have Japanese Sentence Patterns for Effective Communication" and the Kodansha dictionary of Japanese particles. I tried looking them up, but I just got my self confused. I will buy those later, though. Thank you very much for the recommendation.
 
I'll give you my quick two cents since you're online now. The first に is simply the location where the subject is sitting. This shouldn't be a surprise unless you are expecting で to perform this function but that doesn't work with this kind of verb. The と after a verb can act as IF, WHEN, or AND. In this case I think I'd go with WHEN. The second に is directional. She's facing upward. Same way you would say 北向きに (facing north).
 
Thank you two very much for helping. This forum is very helpful!

Just to make sure I am clear. The first に is used to state where the sitting is occurring. From what I gather に and で differ in that で is more for direct actions, such as eating and drinking.If this be true does あの猫は店の後ろに住んでいたけど最近出た。 mean The cat was living behind the store, but it left recently."?The second に just marks the direction something is occurring. 右に見た。 "Looked right."? I am still a little unclear on と though. よろしくお願いします。じゃ、また。
 
Yes, that's right. Transitive verbs use で. Non-transitive use に. (I think that's the rule?) Another one that works like this is "live" as you mentioned. e.g. 日本に住んでいます. This can be confusing because the English and Japanese verbs don't always correspond as you'd expect. For example Stop the car in the parking lot takes ni. 駐車場に車を止める。

> 右に見た。 "Looked right.
Yes, I think so.

You can think of と as connecting two sentences with some cause and effect or order implied. A common phrase you'll hear is そうすると<なにか>。If [I/we/you] do that then this.
 
Thank you two very much for helping. This forum is very helpful!

Just to make sure I am clear. The first に is used to state where the sitting is occurring. From what I gather に and で differ in that で is more for direct actions, such as eating and drinking.If this be true does あの猫は店の後ろに住んでいたけど最近出た。 mean The cat was living behind the store, but it left recently."?The second に just marks the direction something is occurring. 右に見た。 "Looked right."? I am still a little unclear on と though. よろしくお願いします。じゃ、また。
で indicates the location of action, whereas に is for destination or arrival point with connoting a nuance of "direction" when used with 座る or 停める "to park a car". In the first example below, "park" was the location where the action "sitting" took place, and "bench" was the destination the action "sitting" was done to.
e.g.
公園でベンチに座った。
I sat down on a bench in a park.

家の前で車を停めた。
I stopped the car in front of my house.

庭に車を停めた。
I parked the car in the garden.

As for ~に住む, に indicates the location of the existence, as same as いる or ある.

When you look right, "right" is the object, therefore を is used. If you look/see something on the right side of you, (~を)右に見る can be valid.
e.g.
富士山を右に見ながらドライブした。
I took a drive with Mt. Fuji seen to the right.

Haven't you learned the conditional clause yet?
 
A follow up question.

I recently used:
<namesan>はどこに旅行で行きたいですか?

In reading this thread I'm wondering two things:
1. Is 旅行で行きたい valid?
2. If so, would it be better phrased as 旅行でどこに行きたいすか?

It makes more sense in my mind with 何何でどこどこに now that I read it both ways. Sometimes since I'm just trying to get something written in a chat I don't have time to think it all through. Very frustrating to go back later and see obvious errors...

Thanks!
 
A follow up question.

I recently used:
<namesan>はどこに旅行で行きたいですか?

In reading this thread I'm wondering two things:
1. Is 旅行で行きたい valid?
2. If so, would it be better phrased as 旅行でどこに行きたいすか?

It makes more sense in my mind with 何何でどこどこに now that I read it both ways. Sometimes since I'm just trying to get something written in a chat I don't have time to think it all through. Very frustrating to go back later and see obvious errors...

Thanks!

It may or may not be grammatically correct but I feel it's not natural. I like your #2 better but 旅行 is a する verb so you'd typically say どこに旅行したいですか?
 
This implies that you can say 家の前で庭に車を停めた. Is that so?
Not really. Unlike 公園でベンチに座った, "I stopped the car in front of my house, and parked it in the garden" is not a single action. You need to say 家の前で車を停めて、庭に駐車した。 for instance. (I used 駐車した for "to park" instead of 停めた to make clear the difference in meaning.)


A follow up question.

I recently used:
<namesan>はどこに旅行で行きたいですか?

In reading this thread I'm wondering two things:
1. Is 旅行で行きたい valid?
2. If so, would it be better phrased as 旅行でどこに行きたいすか?

It makes more sense in my mind with 何何でどこどこに now that I read it both ways. Sometimes since I'm just trying to get something written in a chat I don't have time to think it all through. Very frustrating to go back later and see obvious errors...

Thanks!
1)
Yes.

2)
Yes, except a typo 行きたいすか?;)

In addition to mdchachi-san, どこに旅行に行きたいですか is another option.
で indicates limitation/condition there, i.e., 旅行で limits "the location you want to go to" to "on the condition of travel", something like "as for travel, where do you want to go?"
e.g.
デートでどこに行きたいですか。
(the same structure as 出張で東京に行ったことがあります。 I've been to Tokyo on business trip.)
 
Hello, all. I recently bought a book called " Breaking in Japanese Literature." I bought it because I felt in needed to practice reading Japanese as I feel I am OK at speaking, hearing, and writing it, but pretty poor at reading. Anyway I came across this sentence and it has grammar I do not know. The name of this story is " The First Night" by Natsume Soseki.

腕組をして枕元座っている、仰向寝た女、静かな声でもう死にますという。The translation is "I was sitting with my arms crossed by the bedside of a woman. She was lying on her back. In a gentle voice she said she was about to die." The is not a literal translation, but it is more or less right. My question is about と、に、が, I have no idea what these particles are doing. Could someone please help. よろしくお願いします。じゃ、また。

So you would have been okay if you had heard the sentence spoken instead of seeing it in print?

This isn't a matter of lack of reading practice; this is a matter of having skipped over the boring grammar learning in favor of more sexy stuff. Especially if it is the case that you could sight-read the vocabulary in that sentence and just got stuck on the particles.

The particles you got stuck on are all things you would have learned if you had worked your way through a good beginning level textbook. I would suggest putting aside the idea of reading Japanese books when you haven't yet learned the most fundamental particles. Spend some time learning basic grammar first and it will make things infinitely smoother when you start to read things.
 
Not really. Unlike 公園でベンチに座った, "I stopped the car in front of my house, and parked it in the garden" is not a single action. You need to say 家の前で車を停めて、庭に駐車した。 for instance. (I used 駐車した for "to park" instead of 停めた to make clear the difference in meaning.)



1)
Yes.

2)
Yes, except a typo 行きたいすか?;)

In addition to mdchachi-san, どこに旅行に行きたいですか is another option.
で indicates limitation/condition there, i.e., 旅行で limits "the location you want to go to" to "on the condition of travel", something like "as for travel, where do you want to go?"
e.g.
デートでどこに行きたいですか。
(the same structure as 出張で東京に行ったことがあります。 I've been to Tokyo on business trip.)

Ah! I make so many typos! 🤦 With English it's so easy for me to see them but in Japanese I need to be vigilant.

So if I say:
どこに旅行に行きたいですか
or
どこに旅行したいですか?

Is there a significant difference?

Thank you!

@Trin Terribly sorry to hijack your thread!
 
I know I need to study grammar more. I just got the book because I get free prime on Amazon so I was ordering a bunch of books. ;) I just wanted to give it a shot and see how much I could read. I will focus more on the grammar. Thanks for all the help.
 
I know I need to study grammar more. I just got the book because I get free prime on Amazon so I was ordering a bunch of books. ;) I just wanted to give it a shot and see how much I could read. I will focus more on the grammar. Thanks for all the help.

It's a great book when you get to it. You might consider the White Rabbit Japanese Graded Readers to work up to it.
 
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