10 Minute Biographies - Chapter 1 (Absolute Beginner Book Club)

@buburoi, @NicoleIsEnough and others
I appreciate your corrections and suggestions for improvements, but I won’t correct my posted translation afterwards anymore. Thus later readers can see what was lacking in my translation.

I consider my posted translations as starting points for discussions and don’t have the ambition of getting a “final” translation approved by all.

Again thank you for all your comments!

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That’s how I think about it as well! Therefore my post was meant to be the next discussion point :upside_down_face:

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It’s also at the beginning of the book. The か after the little blue 1 is just ‘or’. You have to choose (1) か (2), i.e. (1) or (2).
See #2 in Jisho.org: Japanese Dictionary

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Hello everyone!

I could use some assistance on this sentence on page 11 Edison は, 鳥小屋にいるgooseのお母さんをふしぎそうにながめています (please ignore the parts in English instead of Katakana, still learning how to type Japanese on computer).
Does it roughly translate to, “Edison went to the hen house and became curious about the goose’s mother after watching it.”?

I’d translate as: Edison (topic) observed (verb) curiously (adverb) the goose’s mom that lives (object) in the hen house (location).
There is only one verb in the sentence (ながめています). The verb いる here creates a relative clause for the object (“the mom of the goose that exists”, literally).
Someone correct me if I’m wrong :sweat_smile:

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Edison is looking wonderingly at the mother goose that is in the hen house.

The tense is not past tense and this is not about the mother of the goose. :v: But you are right, the main verb is the watching, the being in the hen house is modifying the goose.

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Yeah, it’s not past but I think it makes more sense to use the past tense in English because the action already happened. Japanese people tend to use the present continuous a lot when telling stories, but I don’t think this translates well to English. But you’re right, literally it would be something like “Edison is watching” or “Edison usually watches”.

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Page 13: 「『なぜ』と思う心は、すばらしいわ。」- Why is this わ used here?

ありがとう!
That makes more sense! I think I thought there were two verbs and one was 入る like to enter instead of it being a relative clause. Thank you for sharing your wisdom.

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It’s a particle used by females to emphasize emotion.

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Yes, I get what you mean but I like to keep the tense as it is in the Japanese text. :v:

I have this question too. 三か月で would be “during 3 months” or “after 3 months”? Why?

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I am also an absolute beginner and just guessing here.
で can also be used to indicate when something terminates or the amount of time an action takes. Like 春学期は五月十日で終わる (The spring term ends on May tenth)。 Quitting school is terminating something. So maybe that is why で is used here.

I couldn’t fin an online resource for this but my dictionary of japanese grammar says that. Unfortunately it doesn’t have a lot of examples that don’t use the verb 終わる. And there is no example where someone actively ends something.
So I don’t know if it also works like that.

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Is そう a way to indirectly (ergo politely) say things about somebody or something? Would I use it when saying “I looked at something curiously?”

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I would think で in that case is still another case of it meaning “at” - ending isn’t implied until the actual verb 終わる.

But I think that helps reason out why it’s “after three months” when using 三か月で - “at a period of 3 months” works as “after three months” in my mind.

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That’s good to know thank you.

そう is mainly used to express:

  1. an assumption based on appearance;
    For example この水があつそうです。- This water looks hot (I can infer this after seeing the steam coming out of it, for example).
  2. something you heard from someone else.
    For example この水はあついそうです。- I heard this water is hot (I don’t need to observe it. Someone simply told me it’s hot)

The difference between the 2 sentences is in how そう is added (あつそう vs あついそう). You can see more about that in the Bunpro links I added above.

As for the second question, I don’t think you would use そう in your sentence. “curiously” refers to the way you look at the thing (i.e. it’s an adverb, modifies the verb). It’s not related to the appearance of the thing. I’d say something like 「 [thing]をふしぎに見ました。」 (maybe めずらしい instead of ふしぎ, depending on the context).

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I think そう is used here because we as the readers are observing young Edison and his curiosity is a feeling we can not with absolute certainty speak about.
The speaker would not use そう if they were speaking about their own feelings. 私はなぜそれがそうだったのか不思議に思います。

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I’m behind a couple of days, so I’m only on page 11. I’m confused with this:

あたためるんだろう

I know “to keep warm”, but I don’t understand んだろう at the end. I read the bunpro grammar tip someone linked, but I’m still lost.

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I think it translates to something like “I wonder why it is that …”. You use の or the shorter ん with questions asking for explanations or explanations themselves.

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