My question is why is that か there. I can’t imagine a way to use that particle that would make sense here.
EDIT: after looking at it some more, I think I understand. It doesn’t feel useless to me now, but if I was making that sentence on my own, I would never have thought to put it there. Correct me if Im wrong but is it because of the まるで at the start making that first clause sort of like a question, and the か connects it with the request of the second part.
No, it’s not because of まるで. It’s because “河童が存在することを信じているか” is an embedded question. Embedded questions do not require any keywords to be included. And unlike in English, embedded questions in Japanese don’t require one to restructure the sentence.
No, you’re right. I was not looking at the bigger picture with regard to the possible context because I was so focused on the smaller clause. I’ve also seen まるで～のように without か, but the か is necessary in order to translate it the way you have. Thank you for pointing that out.
I think the まるで〜ように is somewhat irrelevant to understand the point of what か is doing in the sentence though since it’s not really part of the “structure” here.
how is this an embedded question. Its just “believing ing the existence of kappa”, no? The question part of it seems to be the second part where they are asking if they could give them a reaction.
Used with you よう
(you usually follows a clause + ka no)
found on a japanese grammar website marude まるで - Japanese For Beginners . So apparently its just for if you want to use まるで at the beginning of a clause with よう at the end. TIL. For some reason the other two websites mentioned nothing about this…but oh well.
Yep, leebo is right, but I was already typing a reply so ill try to elaborate. so they attached っぽい to the verb stem which shows tendency.
If you know about adding なる to i adjectives, youve probably seen an example like 高くなった
Same thing here, they just drop the i on っぽい, add くなる and conjugate the なる. Naru basically means to become, so its like you became someone with the tendency to forget. In simpler terms you just say you became forgetful
Ignoring まるで still leaves us with ように the two are often paired together, this is a common theme in Japanese, same with もし〜たら but it’s not necessary to have them both together.
Clause~か is a question. 河童が存在することを信じている is “Believe in the existence of Kappa” but 河童が存在することを信じているか - without any other context is “Do you believe in the existence of Kappa?”
I think I understand what you are saying. My initial thought was that the か acted as making the first clause a question, as that is the only way I had seen か used in the middle of a sentence until now.
I see what you mean though. Up until this point I had only seen のように without the か, so I sorta assumed the か was just there for the まるで. The thing you linked cleared it up though, ill be sure to remember that かのように can exist on its own.
As for what the ka does, the example sentence clears it up, I think
…なにもなかったかのように… ‘as if nothing had happened
…なにもなかったように… ‘it looked like nothing had happened’
so 彼は神様だったかのように is more like “…as if he was a god” whereas 彼は神様だったように… is like “…in a godlike way”?
