This was tough, especially because of the length of the logic thread it was hard to keep everything in mind, but I think I figured it out well in the end
“As for the sake of allowing three-dimensional maneuvers, fine weight transfer technology that utilizes fixed belts stretched over the whole body, becomes needed.”
Only big doubt is, to me that receptive verb seems a bit weird, and I also got used to think that when there’s a receptive verb, the element that takes the に is the one making the action (while the subject received). So since it the (whole) body being stretched over by fixed belts, why does ‘whole body’ take に particle?
It’s true that’s one of the big function of japanese 受身形, but it also can be used like regular passive. For example, “to build” and 建てる are both transitive. Someone built something. ＜人＞が＜建物＞を建てる.
But in both language we can use passive to say:
The colosseum was built in 80 AD.
コロセウムは西暦80年に建てられた。
We don’t really care who is the actual doer, in fact the passive allow to mask it and focus on the subject, the colosseum.
張り巡らす is transitive so it’s <人>が固定ベルトを全身に張り巡らす. Someone stretches fixed belt all over the body (全身 is the location/target). But here we want to say “fixed belts are stretched all over the body”. 固定ベルトが全身に張り巡らされる
I’m guessing from a Japanese perspective it’s pretty much the same thing anyway, just the subject is different. If the speaker is the subject of the verb, then usually something is done to they, they “receive it”, and they don’t like it, but if it’s someone/something is the subject of the verb then usually something is done to them/it and it’s neutral.
In all case the actual doer can be marked by に. I think you can write:
コロセウムは西暦80年にティトゥス帝に建てられた。The colosseum was built in 80 AD by emperor Titus.
(But it’s probably a bit unnatural, I see mostly ティトゥス帝によって in this kind of situation)
The Aot text is a technical description, so it’s very unlikely that there is a speaker complaining by being the subject of a passive verb.
I totally ignored this nuance of displeasure there is in the case the speaker is the receiving subject, is it always like this unless it’s plain obvious that the received thing/anything is good?
The first half was easy, the second half was hell.
Mainly because I see 徹底する which means to be/do(?) thoroughly, only as an adjective or an adverb. With する here it becomes a verb and I struggled a lot adapting it into the sentence and it’s still not clear how is interacting with the rest of it. What is this て form doing? 徹底して I mean
Also understanding what 限り does was a hell, I never saw it and was quite confused. Now I guess it’s the “as much as…” or “to the limit of…” meaning
Last thing, I’m still not sure how to translate the verb 尽くす, maybe as “to do fully/ completely”?
Here’s how I’d translate this sentence:
“The equipment whose purpose is high-speed three dimensional movement, is thoroughly made as lightweight as possible”
Another complicating factor in the second part is that 化 that is a suffix which simply adds “-ification” after the word it precedes, as the action of making something". I know what it does but it’s hard to see it in the big picture.
Can someone provide the most literal translation possible of the second half to help me understand?
Edit: I found this translation of the verb 尽くす 全うする。そのことの為に全てをする。他人のために精を出す。全てを表現する 。
Maybe I can simply translate this verb as "doing anything necessary to fulfill a specific purpose - in this case to achieve the lightest weight possible of the equipment pieces.
So basically it says that the equipment is designed to be as lightweight as possible and 限り is probably just emphasizing the “as much as possible” thing while 化 after 軽量 simply implies that the equipment is not just being as lightweight as possible, but is made
全体重
Couldn’t make sense of this word because 全体 means whole or entirety, while 重 means chief, main, principal or important.
If I try to translate them both on Google translte or DeepL in both cases I get “the entire weight/ overall weight”
It fits the context but I can’t find the “weight” definition of 重 anywhere, how is it translated as such?
両側の腰のどちらか一方に全体重をかけることになる。
“It’s arranged so that it supports the whole weight on one side of either hips (at a time?)”
Not 100% sure on this one, does it mean that the full bodyweight is on just one of the two sides (shifting depending on movement), or that it is always distributed on both sides?
I don’t know about always, but the implication is common. Passives in English are used when we want to talk about something from a perspective of something other than the person doing the action. Japanese has a lot more tools for that (word order shuffling; topic-marking with ‘wa’; -te aru; -te morau; transitive vs intransitive verb pairs; etc) and so often the natural way to phrase something which in English uses the passive will use one of those other things in Japanese. That leaves Japanese -rareru as the thing that traditionally expresses some kind of affectedness on a human. The uses of direct passive, especially with inanimate agents and patients, are a post-Meiji development, usually supposed to be because of the effects of influence from and translations from English and Dutch texts. But modern Japanese still uses the passive a lot less than English does.
Out of curiosity, how many words do you guys have to look up of the sentences from AoT?
At the moment, as I previously specified, I look up pretty much everything. Luckily it’s not a big concern to me but I’m dreaming of a distant future when my vocabulary will be big enough so that I’ll only need to look up 10-20 percent of the words I read
Got what you mean, even tho I’m not sure about all the other grammar that is supposed to substitute the receptive form in other instances, I will try to put more attention to this from now on
Interesting, thanks for the feedback… why you say you looked at too many words? I thought that AoT containing many niche terms, it was normal to look many things up even for experienced people. I mean, I’ve been using english for 15 years now so I almost never look up things even tho you personally saw some expressions I still lack, but at 8 years of experience I was still looking things up regularly when approaching more complex reads
Did you acquire vocabs naturally with practice or did you put concerted effort (eg. WK) in learning it?
Honestly I don’t know how and if it’ll work but I’m partially hoping to just begin to memorize words automatically through reading don’t know if it’ll happen consistently but (except for kanji, ofc) I’d prefer to avoid SRS and learning words as part of my studies, I never did it with english and worked good
Are the verbs that allow this a minority in Japanese or I can expect this happening anytime?
