To add to the other answer, もらう gets added after the て form of other verbs in a similar way to くれる to indicate that an action was done as a favor. This is probably an oversimplification but もらう tends to be used when you want to convince someone to give you something or do something for you. 用意させてもらった is all part of one phrase that essentially means “I obtained permission to prepare.” So I would translate this as something like “I got permission to set up a tent this time.” (And of course, it could mean “tents” depending on the context).
「そろそろ この辺りで 決めちまおうかとも 思ってるんだけど」
I’m getting better breaking up long kana strings, but “決めちまおうかとも” has me stumped. Presumably も is a particle, but what conjugation of 決める is going on in here?
I think this is a Kantou dialect thing for てしまう? You can probably just read it as 決めてしまおうか.
jisho lists it as such:
The とも are just particles for the 思ってる, so I assume you know how those work.
Another difficult kana string: 「動作チェック しておきたいから ちょっと電源を 入れてみてくれない」
For context, Tim Nook (Animal Crossing) is giving me a phone and saying not to turn it on yet(?).
Does this seem more like: 「入れて ー みて － くれない」or 「入れて － みてくれ － ない」?
Neither interpretation makes much sense to me.
くれない is negative form of くれる which is being paired with て form of みる. ~てくれる is a grammar point to means “to do something for”. And also ‘電源を入れる’ is itself a phrase which means something like ‘to turn power on’. That is then being paired to do ~てみる.
So it looks like a chained combination of ~てみる + ~てくれる.
From what I remember reading in maybe Tae Kim is that the negative form of くれる is used to soften the request to be like ‘won’t you do ‘verb’ for me.’
As @athomasm said, てくれない means like “won’t you?”, a softer form of a request. And “てみる” means to like “try out”. So in total I’d read this whole sentence as.
“I’d like to check that it works, so won’t you try turning it on for a bit?”
And just as a note, a sentence like this is one of those reasons why I don’t recommend Google Translate as a checker. Because if you were to use it you’d get the following, completely backwards and wrong translation:
It’s easy to tell when Google Translate is probably wrong when you just get plain gibberish, but this translation is more troublesome in that appears somewhat legit if you don’t understand the underlying grammar as it appears to completely misinterpret the function of くれない.
Extremely helpful answers, thank you so much.
Hey people, I have another doubt.
In the sentence:
もしもし、今晩ね、金座で飲んでから帰るから、１１時半ごろになるよ。
The translation in my textbook says “Hello, tonight, OK? I go home after drinking in Ginza, so I’ll be home around 11: 30”. I do not understand though how all the elements come together. I do get that theなる in here means “to become” but applied to the time it would mean something like “it will be 11:30” but I do not see how this connects to the 帰るから part. What does this から do in here?
Thank you so much to all the kind people in here!
It’s not like a から/まで pairing if that’s what you were thinking. The から is acting like a conjunction between the two parts by expressing causative link between the former and the latter phrases.
I believe it’s just the ‘because/since’ meaning. That phrase I believe is saying something like ‘Because I’ll return home after drinking, it’ll be around 11:30’.
The から is the “so” in the translation. After a predicate (like a verb in plain form), から means “because.”
By contrast, から after て means “after”
So 飲んでから after drinking 帰るから I’ll come home, so １１時半ごろになるよ it’ll be around 11:30
That’s a translation in order to explain the grammar though. The nuance is more “I’m going drinking in Ginza tonight, so I won’t be home until around 11:30”
@QuackingShoe @athomasm
Okay, thank you so much! Then the sentence works as I thought. It’s just really weird from my native language point of view (not english) to translate から and なる that way.
Thank you so much!
「生活に必要な ちょっとしたモノは まめきちくんトコで 売ってくれる」
Does anyone know what this “トコ” is?
short for のところ, meaning at Mamekichi’s place (i.e. their house)
「ワクワクしっぱなしだぞー」
Could someone kindly explain what is going on in しっぱなしだ?
Are you familiar with っぱなし?
It’s basically that something remains in a particular state. So, here, remaining in the state of ワクワクする.
Thanks, this is just what I needed! I was not aware of it.
I assume 「なっている」 is the present continuous of なる… does that mean it basically means “to be”, but distinct from です by virtue of implying that there was a previous state of not being?
When ている is applied to verbs that express a change in state, it means that a change occurred and the state is still in effect.
You are right that it basically gives us a bit more information than other ways of phrasing it.
When a verb expresses some kind of action that can continue through time, then it’s more like what we think of as the typical “-ing” version in English.
So I encountered this example sentence for 明細 (details):
明細を教えていただけますか。
And I thought it said something like “Would you be able to teach me the details?”
Instead, the official translation is put down as:
I’d like you to itemise the charges
What? Isn’t that like completely different. What am I missing here?
Thanks in advance