I have a feeling that when I first learned this we were taught the ~かねる and ~かねない patterns separately. Although they’re obviously positive and negative forms of the same verb, I think it’s easier to get a handle on them by thinking about them independently, so
VERBかねない is “can’t rule out that he might VERB/VERB is totally possible” with its overtones of unpredictability
VERBかねる is a rather stiff and formal way to say “that’s very difficult” and mean “no”
I found that let me stop trying to logic my way through the double negative and just treat かねない as a suffix in my head. Plus the two are very different in level of formality, so keeping them mentally separate makes sense in that aspect too, I think.
(~きる and ~きれない are another “same verb, maybe easier to think of as two distinct grammar patterns” case.)
かしら is a word that brings back a special memory for me.
Many years ago in the UK, I was a passenger in a car driven by a Japanese woman who had lived in England for a long time. None of us apart from the driver could speak Japanese. She was telling us (in English) that we had nearly reached our destination, but then she became confused about which way to turn, and started muttering to herself distractedly. I couldn’t understand a word she said, but every sentence ended with the word かしら.
She eventually found the right road and the right house. Once we were safely parked, I couldn’t contain my linguistic curiosity and I asked her, “What does ‘kashira’ mean?”
The look of shock on her face was unforgettable, and then she burst out laughing. My first thought was that かしら must be some sort of expletive, but it turned out that she was shocked because she had been completely unaware of switching to Japanese when she was concentrating on her driving.
She was not very old (mid thirties), but she was a highly educated woman who dressed in a somewhat formal style.
I agree! Like she sort of shifts directions part of the way though the sentence, haha. One of the beautiful and difficult things about translating wrestling stuff is that this is for the most part unscripted dialogue done in one take, so it comes with all the messiness of real speech… . What gets me is when part of the construction gets omitted, which is part of why I struggled for so long with 逆に haha because none of the examples I was seeing were as straightforward as the ones in this book.
Definitely going to try this! Thanks for the tip! I also didn’t notice the formality difference from reading the entry, so I appreciate you pointing that out as well!
かと言うと
Someone in example (e) has opposite skills from mine…
日本語は難しいかと言うと、話したり聞いたりすることはそんなに難しくない。
You’d think that Japanese would be hard, but speaking and listening are not that hard.
This conjunction can be used when one makes an assertion that a popular belief or what the listener or reader may believe is not always true. What the listener/reader is expected to believe is expressed in S1 in S1 かと言うと S2. S2 is often そうではない or a variation, but sometimes the S2 part is omitted.
Couldn’t find any examples in Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling! I suppose pro wrestling doesn’t tend to lead itself to this kind of speech…
(の)代わりに
I learned 代わり first from WaniKani, then learned this construction in my textbooks, so it feels pretty straightforward to me now!
The conjunction/particle 代わりに indicates something being compensated by something else. If the idea of balancing is missing, it can’t be used. Vnonpast before 代わりに indicates an action that has not taken place, whereas Vpast 代わりに indicates an action that has already taken place.
In the case of adjectives before 代わりに, whatever is expressed by the adjective holds true, but Adj inf・past 代わりに Ad2 inf・nonpast is unacceptable. This is kind of interesting because I wouldn’t have necessarily assumed that example 4 c. wouldn’t be acceptable because that kind of sentence is fine in English for some adjectives.
If an action/state expressed in S 代わりに doesn’t actually occur, the entire sentence can be rewritten with ないで or ずに. If an action/state expressed in the subordinate clause actually occurs and the subordinate clause is connected with the main clause with the meaning of “so” or “but”, the entire sentence can be rewritten with から / ので or が / けれど(も) / しかし. However, the choice of 代わりに will make the meaning of compensation much clearer.
The crucial difference between 代わりに and those other expressions is that the others can be used even when no meaning of balancing is intended, but the latter can’t be used if balancing is not implied.
Here's an example from TJPW's show on 2024.01.20, which was the start of their yearly tag league. Yuki Kamifuku and Mahiro Kiryu lost in the first round.
Kamifuku: “You know, while I was out last week, I thought ‘surely since Mahiro-chan’s got it together, she’ll be off somewhere doing buttloads of anaerobic training right about now.”
桐生「ごめんなさい！とくに無酸素…なんですか？」
Kiryu: “Sorry! I didn’t particularly do any anaerobic… what was it?”
Kamifuku: “You didn’t? What are we going to do now—It’s my fault, too, but what are we going to do? For all this time we’ve just been kept going by the mere fact we’ve been doing it for a long time, so we just keep prolonging our friendship, and we tried to get fired up for a fresh start, but then we lost our chance at the belts, to Wi-Fi. But even though I said once that we were breaking up, we’re back at it again so soon, and still no results. What should we do?!”
I remember the first time and encountered こちらこそすみません and read the explaination for it, my eyes went like: O__O
So now feeling very happy to see that it feels very natural to me!
So at least I’ve got that going for me, but still so much to learn, I found many of the other example sentences of this week quite challenging.
結果 can be interpreted as “as a result of” or “after/upon doing something” only when it is not followed by a particle. Otherwise, 結果 is a common noun.
I was having trouble finding non-noun examples in Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling, but I did manage to find one in the 2023.10.25 press conference about Yuka Sakazaki's graduation:
Here’s the transcript and here’s the video, though the below is a paraphrased description and not direct dialogue like usual:
Originally, it was announced that her graduation would take place at the December 1 Korakuen Hall show, but as the result of a discussion between the organization and Sakazaki, the “東京女子プロレス誕生10周年記念興行～坂崎ユカ卒業スペシャル～” (“TJPW 10th Anniversary Show - Yuka Sakazaki Graduation Special”) will be held on December 6 (Wed) at Kitazawa Town Hall, which was the venue of TJPW’s inaugural show, and Sakazaki will graduate at the end of the show.
結構
The adverb 結構 is used in colloquial speech when something exceeds the speaker’s and/or hearer’s expectation to a considerable degree. In sentences that end in ね, it indicates that something exceeds both the speaker’s and hearer’s expectation.
結構 can be used with a verb that expresses an undesirable state, but it can’t be used easily with an adjective that expresses an undesirable state. It also can’t be used with any negative predicate.
Note 3 says “the verb predicate that is modified by 結構 is subject to degree interpretation”. This is worded a bit confusingly… At first I thought it meant that the degree to which the verb applies is open to interpretation, but after reading the next section, I think it’s just saying that 結構 can only be used if the verb predicate can happen to varying degrees.
The related expressions section compares 結構 to 案外, which is used to express unexpectedness about an action or state. Since 結構 also expresses unexpectedness about something, there are cases where it can be replaced by 案外. But when the modified verb doesn’t indicate something that is subject to degree interpretation, 結構 is out of the question. When degree interpretation is possible, both 結構 and 案外 are acceptable.
意外と “unexpectedly”, “to one’s surprise”, is also very similar to 結構. 意外と means that something totally beyond one’s expectation occurs. Since both 結構 and 意外と express unexpectedness, they are interchangeable when the predicate is subject to degree interpretation. In this case, too, 意外と can’t be replaced by 結構 when the predicate is not subject to degree interpretation.
割(合)と/に or 割合 “a little more than one has expected” expresses a slight gap between expectation and reality. “In other words, the speaker has some expectation about something, and believes that reality is relatively higher or lower than his expectation.” The replaced versions of the example sentences express the speaker’s comparison between the expectation and the reality. If such comparison between the expectation and the reality is difficult, the replacement becomes impossible.
I have an example from not TJPW! This is from 666's 20th anniversary show on 2023.08.02, which Raku, Hikari Noa, and Pom Harajuku participated in so that Ram Kaichow could tag with her wife (Raku) in her home promotion (they're just kayfabe married, not for real married. Probably). This one was also translated by my predecessor, who is an actual professional, and not me:
Here’s the video (with hard-coded English subs! An absolute rarity with TJPW stuff). I’ve timestamped it to where the part quoted below starts.
(You’ve both known Ram Kaichow for a while; what was it like to fight her in the ring?)
Noa: “I’ve fought her in a TJPW ring before but today I felt the power of the home advantage. Fighting her in the TJPW ring is fun, but I also enjoy the thrill of being the away team.”
(1) Tamura’s talk sounds like he knows the minister well.
(2) Tamura talks as if he knew that minister well.
I instinctively parsed it as (2), and I can somehow twist my brain to understand it like (1), but then I tried to draw a diagram of how I’m parsing the sentence in two different ways to get different meanings and realised I couldn’t do it.
The book implies the two interpretations are because ような話し方をする is an expression, but I don’t understand what that means in this context/why it matters.
Can someone please explain it to me?
この
And there’s another part I’m having trouble with, all in one session… It’s a good day for learning!
How does this:
このたびこの会の会員に加えていただきました。
Turn into this??
I became a member of this club at this time.
I did my best to puzzle together a literal translation, but I’m really not sure.
“At this time (このたび) they graciously I received their kindness as they (〜ていただきました) added me to (加え) the members of this club (この会の会員).”
I love taking apart keigo, because it’s such an interesting way of thinking, but I also hate it because it makes me feel like I don’t know Japanese at all.
I don’t think this is to do with ような話し方をする in particular (the dictionary just says it’s an example of sn expression with two interpretations). I think it’s because ~ような can be used in both actual and counterfactual situations (see ようだ in the Basic volume.) So in the sentence above there is no difference in parsing of the sentence – it doesn’t say either way whether Tamura does or doesn’t know the minister well, so to pick the most appropriate English translation you need to know that information from elsewhere (e.g. from context). If you do want in the Japanese to make it clear that this is a counterfactual you could throw in e.g. まるで or use かのような (discussed in the Advanced volume).
Your literal translation has put the wrong person as the subject. The subject is the speaker, and he received from somebody else the action of their adding him to the club. I make this slightly nitpicky correction because the viewpoint matters: this isn’t about “the club committee finally agreed to let me in”, the focus is on the speaker (who is politely acknowledging that it’s the club that actually added them to the membership list, and they weren’t forced to do it). That’s why the natural English translation says “I became a member”.
Yes I agree, I couldn’t find a way to phrase it so that it makes sense in English.
I’m glad that’s the only point you’re nitpicking because it means I got the idea correctly. It really took me typing it out to arrive at that point haha
Edit: oh wait I just realised something. The subject of いただく is obviously “I”, but the agent of 加える is still the club, isn’t it?
Yes; with ~てもらう and ~ていただく the person doing the action is the other person, not the sentence subject (you can mark the agent with に if it matters and it’s not clear from context).
I was a bit thrown off when I first saw this, thinking “wait, why is this in the intermediate volume?” but then I looked a bit closer and saw that they were talking about a very specific use of it… which I’ve honestly found to be pretty straightforward .
この followed by a certain noun or a number with a certain counter is used as a temporal phrase. The time or period indicated by the phrase differs depending on the noun which follows and the context:
One time in the past
From one time in the past through the moment of speech
Around the moment of speech
A period of time including the moment of speech
From the moment of speech on
One time in the future
I went searching for a Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling example, slightly worried I might have trouble sifting through all the この uses to find this specific one, but I realized almost immediately that this use might be actually more common than the usual demonstrative この use that is taught in textbooks, at least in this setting.
Here's an example from my last translation, which was for the 2024.03.03 show, which featured a tag match where rookies Toga and Wakana Uehara teamed up against Miyu Yamashita and Moka Miyamoto:
Toga: “It has already been almost a year (since my debut), and I fought Yamashita-san here at Shinjuku FACE, but it was a different feeling of nervousness compared to my debut match, or rather I approached this match as a way of showing my growth after the experience I’ve gained through a year’s worth of matches. I couldn’t do anything in my debut match, but I think I was able to show a bit of growth today, even though there were points that highlighted just how much of a gap there is between us in ability. I’m going to keep working hard from this point on so that it doesn’t end here and the next time we face each other and the time after that, my growth will keep being apparent.”
The first example is use 1, and the second example is use 6. I actually missed the nuance of that " この次" when translating this initially, so maybe this grammar point does merit its own entry after all, haha.
こうした
こうした is an adjectival (pre-noun) form. The adverbial form is こうして. この, ような, and こんな (the contracted form of このような, apparently? Did I know this??) mean the same as こうした. But こうした and このような are more formal than こんな and are used mostly in written Japanese. The adverbial form of このような is このように. こんな has no adverbial form.
The demonstratives こういう and こういった also express the idea “such; like this”, but don’t have corresponding adverbial forms.
そうした “like that” and ああした “like that” are similar to こうした in meaning, but they can’t be used to refer to someone or something from previous discourse.
(The example sentence for III. [1] reminded me of some of the recent discourse over video game layoffs in America, and how Japan’s laws prevent that sort of thing from happening there…)
In general, そうした is used to refer to someone or something mentioned by a second person, and ああした is used to refer to someone or something mentioned by a third person.
I wasn't sure I'd find an example of this in TJPW thanks to the formality thing, but as it turns out, there was one in the 2024.02.26 press conference I translated a couple weeks ago! This was when they announced that former AKB48 member Ami Yumoto would be making her pro wrestling debut at Grand Princess. Tetsuya Koda (who runs TJPW) was speaking, hence the formality:
Yumoto: “When I performed on stage with Nao-san in December, we hit it off with a casual conversation that went something like ‘I used to do Tofu Pro Wrestling too!’ And from that point on, we talked a whole lot about pro wrestling, and we had such a connection, Nao-san invited me to come to professional wrestling, and I decided I’d give it a try.”
Nao: “I’m currently wearing two hats, selfishly performing both in plays and in professional wrestling, but I’m really happy that thanks to meeting her on the stage last year, I was able to create an opportunity to be able to stand in the same ring with my co star on a big stage like, and I’m glad that I have been so selfish. I’m happy that I have been able to add a new sense to being glad that I’m wearing two hats. Since I came to TJPW, I’ve come to love pro wrestling even more, and I really feel that I’ve come to love TJPW, so I want Ami-chan to get to know this new world, and I want her to think that pro wrestling is fun, and to fall in love with TJPW. I want to have more friends who like TJPW.”
Koda: “With those circumstances in mind, I wanted to have Nao Kakuta and Ami Yumoto team up for her debut match on March 31 at Ryogoku Kokugikan, competing as a team. Whether it’ll be a 2 vs. 2 tag match with Yumoto and Kakuta on a team, or a 3 vs. 3 six women tag match with one more person joining them, the organization is still in the process of arranging it.”
Reading the example sentences, I suddenly realized why こちらこそ actually breaks down into. I memorized that initially as just a set chunk of syllables, so it’s fun to understand it a little better.
The particles が and を are dropped when こそ follows. The next sentence in the notes is worded a bit weirdly, but I think it’s saying that you can leave out へ and に if it’s a temporal, directional, or locational one. Other particles are not dropped.
I see this one a lot in Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling! Here's an example from their tag tournament on 2024.01.27, after Yuki Arai and Wakana Uehara lost to Daydream (Miu Watanabe and Rika Tatsumi):
Arai: “We lost in the semifinals… Wakana-chan was doing her best at the end, but I was unable to save her. This is just my personal issue, but I’ve lost the tag tournament to Daydream three years in a row, so I thought this year would be it for sure, but in the end, I still couldn’t measure up to Daydream’s strength. I’m really disappointed.”
こと
I’m not sure I remember learning this use? Example (C) almost had me opening my book to page 23 for details before my brain caught up to me .
Vinf・nonpast こと and VNのこと are used only in written Japanese. They often appear in rules and regulations. In sentences involving VNのこと, the particles が, を, and に are often dropped.
I’m not going to search for TJPW examples, because I doubt I’ll find any! I thought maybe there’d be some on their twitter account, since they sometimes give rules on there, but those tweets tend to be written in a warm and friendly tone, and I couldn’t find any which used this structure.
in general, そうした is used to refer to s.o. or s.t. mentioned by a second person (…) and ああした is used to refer to s.o. or s.t. mentioned by a third person.
I’d always learned こ as being close to me, そ being close to the person I’m talking to and あ as being close to neither. But then recently a friend corrected me on that and told me that it’s more about distance in general. I can say ’そっち行こう’ for example and point to a direction that’s farther from him than from me.
The thing that sparked the whole discussion was that I was continuously using あの人 for referring to people that weren’t present/he didn’t know, and he said it sounded kind of impolite or like I was purposely creating distance between me and them.
I’m not criticising what they’re saying in the book, I think in this context it makes sense like that, but I wanted to share this anecdote because it was a time where my textbook learning (what little of it I’ve done) really failed me.
ことによる
Another <w>. I started marking the <w> or <s> tags (“written” or “spoken” respectively) in different colours so I wouldn’t overlook them again.
I can really feel the “due to the fact that” by now, and I can also feel how reading this dictionary is making the distinctions and knowledge I have about the individual grammar points somehow much clearer and solid, and I love that sensation of gaining clarity!
ことによる is being compared with からだ and ためだ:
ことによる represents only a cause, からだ represents a reason as well as a cause and ためだ represents a reason, a purpose or a cause. (edited quote)
I used to only know the ために as describing the reason for something, but even though I wasn’t here for its entry in ADoBJG, somehow I’ve recently learned it in its other meanings too, without even meaning to. Yay!
I’m also noticing that intensively reading the example sentences is totally useful for me. Maybe I’ll add more intensive reading of translated sentences to my studying.
…and with that I’m done with this week! Maybe tomorrow I’ll do the pages I didn’t get to last week.
This is almost but not quite the same as the set of particles which the Basic volume describes as being dropped when the は topic particle is added. (The difference is that here temporal に is given as optionally dropping and for は it’s in the doesn’t drop list.)
Thanks for the story, I never thought about it and I think I would have made the same wrong assumption!
But now that you mention it, I notice that indeed, あの人 and その人 have a totally different vibe and I notice it being used in what I read too!
Here, someone is telling about someone she liked when she was in school for example:
When ことで represents a means, the preceding element must be a nonpast verb regardless of the tense of the main clause. When it represents a cause, the preceding element can be a verb, an adjective, or a copula in either the past or nonpast tense.
ことにより / よって expresses the same idea as ことで. ために, ので, and から can also indicate a cause, but S1 ことで S2 can be used only when the events, actions, or situations in S1 and S2 take place at the same time. ために, ので, and から don’t have this restriction.
ために = a cause, a reason, and a purpose
ので and から = a cause and a reason
ことで = a cause and a means, but not a reason
I had a surprisingly hard time finding this structure in Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling. I found a lot of stuff that was not this, and then ultimately decided to give up rather than keep sifting through the results…
ことになる
X ことになる is usually preceded by a topic clause or a conditional clause, which represents an action or an event which leads to a certain situation or logical conclusion represented by X. The conditional clause can be either a たら-conditional, a ば-conditional, or a と-conditional.
In another context, S ことになる means “it will be decided that” (we discussed this one last year!).
Here's an example from TJPW's show on 2024.02.17, where Hyper Misao and Shoko Nakajima won in the main event in Shoko's hometown, and they talked about their upcoming match vs Aja Kong and Max The Impaler, which was just announced at this show:
Hard mode: here’s the video. Also, this is an interesting example because it has the other use of ことになる, too! I’ve highlighted them both so that they can be compared. The first is the meaning that’s in the basic volume; the second is the one that this entry is talking about.
中島「新潟守りました！」
Nakajima: “We protected Niigata!”
ミサヲ「享楽共鳴が新潟の愛と平和を守ったぞー！」
Misao: “Kyoraku Kyomei protected love and peace in Niigata!”
Nakajima: “But we’ve learned that today is just the prologue. Because on March 31 at Ryogoku Kokugikan, Max The Impaler and Aja Kong-san, no, Aja Kong! We’re going to have a match against those guys. It feels like it’ll be to decide once and for all who is the strongest kaiju. We also have the strongest hero on our side!”
Misao: “I absolutely can’t lose! The amount we raised in one month with everyone’s help… I can’t say it out loud, but I spent about 2 million (yen) to make a new Hypami Dramatic Dream Mobile, and I don’t know what’ll happen to it in this match if we lose, so I won’t let them lay a single finger on it!”
中島「あの自転車にはみんなの気持ちがこもってんだよ！」
Nakajima: “That bike is filled with everyone’s feelings!”
Misao: “That’s right! And I have a secret weapon that I haven’t brought out yet, or rather there’s a secret function, so we’re going to bring them down without letting them lay a finger on it!”
中島「やってやるぜ！ 覚悟しとけよ！」
Nakajima: “We’re going to do it! Prepare yourself!”
ミサヲ「覚悟しとけよ！」
Misao: “Prepare yourself!”
中島「逆に覚悟しとけよ！」
Nakajima: “No, really, it’s really you who should be prepared!”
. What gets me is when part of the construction gets omitted, which is part of why I struggled for so long with 逆に haha because none of the examples I was seeing were as straightforward as the ones in this book.
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