なぜ?どうして?Finished!

That’s a pretty good idea

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11

If you read back through the thread, I think people were saying that 食べられて was in the passive, not the potential.

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Yes, but over the next few days you’ll get a feel for the pace of things and it’ll become second nature. And if you do post a sentence or two ahead, it’s not a big deal.

@saruko, could I trouble you for a moment? I have tried to add scanned photos of the current print edition pages to the current doc, but the spreadsheet version only seems to want to accept web-based images; do you know a way around this? If not, could I trouble you to set up a Google doc version of word, where (according to this) it appears easier to add your own photos? Cheers!

I agree for the most part but I think よく is actually 良く here so I would translate it more along the lines

From olden days we have eaten well since to mix vinegar and rice makes it last long

A very literal translation I know but I think that’s closer to the meaning.

P.S. sorry if this has already been mentioned I’m skim reading on my phone so may have missed it

良く means both ‘well’ and ‘often’ (as you can read by following your own link) but in this instance I think ‘often’ is the correct meaning.

The subject of the sentence is ‘rice-mixed-with-vinegar’; with your translation of よくas well instead of often, the subject gets shifted / demoted to a subordinate clause.

P.S. Thank you for your post - while I knew that よくmeant both ‘well’ and ‘often’, and I knew that ‘well’ was 良く, I did not know that the よ in ‘often’ was also 良. One more piece of the massive jigsaw puzzle that is Japanese has dropped into place.

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くる doesn’t mean “come” in this sentence. Check out @JavaSparrow’s earlier post explaining verb+てくる / てきた:

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Page 10

I suppose both readings are grammatically defensible, but the context suggests the authors mean “often/a lot of” rather then “well”.

“Eating well” implies either a healthy, balanced diet or having sufficient food so as not to starve. Neither really fits the context - rice will not help you much if you lack micronutrients, and there is no mention of starving or food shortage before the times of rice mixing in the text.

Rather, reading よく as “often/a lot of” ties in with the previous sentence discussing the huge popularity of sushi with the Japanese - our sentence can be read as an explanation for it.

I would even be tempted to read すし as the main subject of our sentence, carried over from the previous one:

おすしは、子供達からお年寄りまで、たくさん人に人気の日本の食べものです。
Sushi is a Japanese food that is popular with a lot of people, young and old.

すを混ぜるとご飯が長持ちするので、むかしからよく食べられてきました。
It [=sushi] has been eaten often since the olden days because rice, when mixed with vinegar, doesn’t spoil easily.

Note: sushi is prepared with rice mixed with vinegar, sugar, salt and other stuff [link]

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It would perhaps be more accurate to say that すし is the topic of the second sentence, as the (grammatical) subject is clearly marked with が.

I disagree. が explicitly links ご飯 only to the verb that follows it, 長持ちする. Thus, ご飯が is the grammatical subject of the clause:

すを混ぜるとご飯が長持ちする

The second clause, however, has no explicit subject or topic:

むかしからよく食べられてきました

EDIT: Note that our sentence contains two independent clauses linked by a coordinating conjunction ので (“and so”). That’s why the subject of one clause is not necessarily the subject of the other.

On its own, the phrase could mean “Ever since the olden days we’ve eaten well”. It may also refer to the last explicit subject, ご飯 ("[Because rice is long-lasting,] ever since the olden days we’ve eaten it often/a lot of it). But I think the text as a whole makes the most sense if our sentence referred to the subject introduced in the previous sentence, おすし, rather then suddenly switching to talking about rice in general, only to go back to discussing sushi in the following sentence.


As for the topic/subject conundrum, I think sometimes marking the distinction between the two is unnecessary, or even potentially overcomplicating things. In our example すしは and すしが would be interchangeable:

[すしは]、すを混ぜるとご飯が長持ちするので、むかしからよく食べられてきました
すを混ぜるとご飯が長持ちするので、[すしが] むかしからよく食べられてきました

To be honest, I’d say it’s both the topic of the sentence and the subject of the second clause:

X [すしは]、すを混ぜるとご飯が長持ちするので、[すしが] むかしからよく食べられてきました
X As for sushi, since rice, when mixed with vinegar doesn’t spoil easily, sushi has been eaten often since the olden days.

but if the topic and the subject are identical, you omit one or the other (or both) as you need.

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I am struggling a bit with P11, I’ll have to check some of the other posts to see if I can figure out some of the things I’m not sure about but this is what I have so far:

すを まぜると ごはんが 長もちするので、むかしから よく 食べられてきました。

If you mix vinegar with cooked rice it will last longer, and so it has been eaten this way since long ago/olden times.

今は、外国でも [Sushi] と いえば 通じるほど、 日本の おすしは、とても 人気が あります。

Now, even if you speak of “sushi” in other countries it will be understood as Japanese sushi is very popular.

せかいの いろいろな 国に おすしの おみせが あります。

In various countries throughout the world sushi exists.

I’m a bit stuck on the よく in the first sentence. When I looked it up it seems to mean properly, skillfully etc. Is that to do with how well the rice and the vinegar is being mixed or is it something else?

Also can’t figure out what おみせ is. I checked the vocab list in the docs and the みせ is down as “shop”, but why is it おみせ?

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The お of おみせ it’s just an honorific particle

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We discussed this here: post 1, post 2, post 3

Check out this post but yeah, you got the gist

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Thank you for this advice. I started by jotting down on pen and paper any words I could pick out from the sentence and then translated the gaps as you suggested, so I think I’ll keep doing that. Looks like I just need to knuckle down and start working through the Tae Kim book - I have had it bookmarked for ages but only read through the opening chapters!

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Yeah, I thought so, but I was having trouble understanding when/why they add お to some things and not others.

Thanks for the links, the search seems to be broken for me when I try to use it.

Oh, I see. I don’t think I’ve reached that part in Genki yet.

Page 11 (I believe, since in my ebook is page 28)

せかいの いろいろな 国に おすしの おみせが あります

There are sushi shop in the various countries of the world

Also I want to make use of this post to say that I’m really excited about reading my first japanese book and I’ll try my best to continue posting and partecipating in this thread.

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No problem - that’s why we’re reading it in a group!
For the passive, check out section 5.1.2 in the Tae Kim guide or Genki Lesson 21.

I found 〜てくる in Tae Kim section 4.5.5, but I couldn’t find it in Genki with a quick skimming.

btw, happy birthday!

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〜てくる in a temporal sense is not in genki, it is a more advanced grammar and can be found eg in Tobira

Summary

or Try N3

Summary

or A Handbook of Japanese Grammar Pattens

Summary

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