Thanks, I’ll swap it out.
And the politeness levels of the two sentences are different. If you meant to do that and it’s how you want to structure it, it’s not an issue because people do occasionally go back and forth like that, but it depends on the relationship.
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Thanks for the answer. That’s really clear.
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I still having big issue to parse moderately difficult sentence…
(In the text just before the following sentence, the writer argue that working at a company and studying at school is not that different, you have to follow procedure, evaluate your work etc…)
そう考えると、つまりは学校で勉強していることが会社や社会で働くことを勉強していることになるのだとわかるだろう。
Outer part is fine : そう考えると、つまりは…のだとわかるだろう。If you think so, you will find/understand that …
But inner part :
学校で勉強していることが会社や社会で働くことを勉強していることになる
Is the following analysis correct ?
学校で勉強していることが = studying at school
There is a が, so it’s the subject of some verb, let’s parse until the next one
(学校で勉強していることが) 会社や社会で働く
But 学校で勉強していることが can’t be the subject of 働く, right ? I think only person can be subject of 働く. So let’s continue to next verb :
(学校で勉強していることが) (会社や社会で働くこと)を勉強している
Same issue. 学校で勉強していることが probably can’t be the subject of 勉強している, only people can. Let’s continue to next verb :
(学校で勉強していることが) ( (会社や社会で働くこと)を勉強していること)に なる
Which finally make some kind of sense, so the sentence would be in fact AがBになる
“Studying in school” become “Studying to work in a company or society”
Is this OK ?
If so, how can we get better at this kind of stuff, is there a reliable way ? it took me forever to find this interpretation, I basically did a lot of random grouping until I found one that make sense 
i agree with your reading. once you read enough, making an effort to understand the meaning or translate it, you develop better intuition, though it doesn’t really feel very random here based on the context and fairly clear grammar.
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Thanks !
Can’t wait for this intuition thing to show up 
I think I got confused because in complex sentence 90% of the case when a Aが appear, it’s part of a simple clause, like (Aが…verb) noun
But here it’s Aが (double embedded clause)に なる… tricky !
Also got sidetracked by the ending ことになる, I tried to find a non-existing connection with the grammar “it has been decided that”…
If you’re having trouble parsing complex sentences–especially because you’re having trouble finding groupings to give you footholds–look for verb endings, since they often indicate modifiers. If you can pull out modifier-modified-object pairs, you can often unlock the general meaning of the sentence fairly quickly.
In this case, you could hone in on those verb endings and quickly pull out:
学校で勉強していること
Studying in school/what students study in school
and
会社や社会で働くこと
Working within a society or company
and
勉強していること
Studying/study
And then put together: “what students study in school” が “working in society or a company” を “study” になる (hey, there’s one last verb ending to hone in on!). From there, it shouldn’t be too difficult to complete the English translation or comprehend it on your own. Sometimes the endings and beginnings of either the modifier or modified object may not be immediately obvious, but in that case, you can simply walk forward and backward from the verb ending, which is why I’m singling it out as the thing to hone in on.
You can use searching for the verb endings as a way in, as your intuition/comfort with native reading builds up. After that, it’s just a matter of actually understanding the surrounding grammatical connections and not getting caught by traps like, as you mentioned, getting stuck on reading another meaning out of constructions like “ことになる.” But again, if you can break it up into those simple modifier-modified chunks by checking the verb endings from the start, you’ll be far less likely to fall into the kinds of traps that can occur if you’re scrounging blindly for blocks of meaning.
In short, you seem to be trying to walk forward and backward from particles, and it’s making finding the actual units of meaning hard. Try walking forward and backward from verb endings instead, to find the modifiers and what they’re modifying. The particles can be your bookends (letting you know where to stop), and at the end you can use them to check the relationship between all the pieces you’ve found.
This is absolutely a training-wheels way of reading–as you get more comfortable, you won’t always be scanning for verb endings, and will in fact be able to handle even complex sentences going smoothly from beginning to end–but it can help you get used to patterns and help check your understanding of sentences that are still challenging at your current level. This was one of the ways I approached reading when I first started to tackle higher-level native material.
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Thanks ! Great answer 
And now that I think of it, usually in Japanese, the closer we get to a verb, to more important information become, so it’s a really good to idea to quickly scan for verb-ending and immediate surrounding in complex sentence. I’ll try to do it more. Thanks again @IanD
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Hey people! I have a problem with a sentence in a N3 preparatory book. Here it goes.
あー、四つ目の信号って、地下鉄の出口を出たところの信号も入れて四つ目っていうことだったんだよ。
Okay, so I understand the first part of the sentence, I guess it would be something like “Ah, speaking about the traffic light in the crossroad” but I get lost in the second part because:
- I don’t understand the usage of も there, I guess it is emphatic but I do not see the point in using it.
- I don’t understand the usage of 入れて at all. I guess it would be something like there is a crossroad in that traffic light…?
Sorry for asking, I will appreciate any kind of help 
I think the sentence should clarify that the speaker is referring to the fourth traffic light including the one at the subway exit. 入れる can mean “to include” and も means “also/even”.
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Thank you @Fungarlo now I get it
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I’m doing some listening practice for the JLPT. In one of the exercises I have to listen to a question and pick the right answer.
Q: スキー、したことある？
a) ええ、何回かあります。
b) ええ、子供の時、ありました。
The correct answer is a. Is b wrong because ある is the wrong verb here? If it was ええ、子供の時、した。would the answer be correct, then?
Generally speaking, the answer to “～したことがある？” is “ある” or “ない” (allowing for politeness differences) not some other conjugation.
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Then why is b wrong here? Is it just the wrong conjugation and it would be correct if it’s “ええ、子供の時、ある。”?
Also, the book gives me the follwong example for these kind of questions + answer:
Q 京都へ行ったこと、ある？
A うん、きょねん、行った。
So to confirm, that the one answering has been there, ある isn’t used but 行った… So I don’t get why this is correct but, referring to my previous example, “ええ、子供の時、した。” is not…?
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I was saying, if you’re going to use the verb ある, it should be ある or ない, not あった. Your experience can’t disappear, as would be implied by あった. As if when you were a child you had skied, but now time has passed and you no longer have skied before.
Sure, you could use a different verb. And that would just be a different way to answer. Your change would probably be fine.
EDIT: This is ignoring possible discussions of a past you where the framing of the original question is different.
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Ah, now I get it! Thank you!
This is from the core 2000 Anki deck.
明日のプレゼンテーションが心配だ。
I’m worried about tomorrow’s presentation.
Why is the が being used here?
I don’t see why the sentence’s grammar on its own is anything unusual. Are you asking why the translation in English uses “to worry” while the Japanese is more like “worrisome” for 心配?
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Doesn’t が usually mark the subject of the sentence? Like when you’re trying to say that something is doing something.
猫が庭にある。
I thought this kind of sentence would be more like . . .
明日のプレゼンテーションには心配している。
or
明日のプレゼンテーションについて心配している。
It does. You could instead translate the Japanese as “tomorrow’s presentation is a concern” or “tomorrow’s presentation is worrisome.” But that’s just a discussion of the English.
AがB is just A=B in this case.
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