Goes to show how much of language works on inferring context I guess!
One other thing I thought of that about all this is - I don’t know if you could use this form for more than 2 examples. It seems like from the examples, and the “both” translation, probably not? But I don’t really know.
That would be one big difference from just listing もs
I honestly don’t have an answer and I don’t really feel like doing research on it for once, in particular because the last time I looked through the monolingual definitions for ば (granted, I was a little less proficient back then), there really was a shocking number of little nuances. However, what I can offer is an analogy: in French, “si” usually means ‘if’, but it can also be used in a “si A, B” sentence structure that means ‘while A, B’, and which is often combined with words with an inclusive meaning like “aussi”=‘also’. Both A and B are true in that case. I’d say that this is the Japanese equivalent of that structure that simply implies that both are true, possibly with the first acting as a background state for the second, which would mean, in essence, that the second clause probably builds on what has been stated earlier, and that there should probably be a vague link between the two. After all, conditional sentences are fundamentally about one thing being assumed to be true while another occurs, and ば tends to be the sort of conditional that ‘sets the stage’ for the second half of the sentence, so I think this usage isn’t all that surprising.
From the little experience I have with grammar I also do get the impression that 〜ば is a bit more than just a conditional, based on the structures in which it’s used. I think a regular “if” conditional would be the 〜たら clause ending, though I’ve seen it used in contexts where it translates to “when” and not a plain “if”, but that could also be translation issues or general differences between English and Japanese.
On the topic of “both”, I randomly learned this “neither nor” structure which I’ve not seen used anywhere and not taught explicitly in Genki:
〜ことも〜こともない
It just popped up in a reading passage once, but I haven’t encountered it since literally anywhere.
Short first time question, sorry if I do anything wrong. Simple enough I’m sure but I’m a bit stuck. A sentence came up in Genki:
ウィーンにはカフェがたくさんあります。
I understand that this means “There are many cafes in Vienna” and I understand the に/が particle combo, but I’m just curious about the は that comes before cafe. I’m not sure why it’s there.
Using に and は together here just makes ウィーン both the location and the topic.
I think this was actually explained in one of the early chapters in Genki - how use of location + に differs in terms of nuance from location + には, where extra uses of は were explained. Check the 表現ノート sections in Genki 1 I believe.
EDIT: Genki 1, chapter 11
If the ‘topic’ explanation isn’t immediately clear for you, another way to think of it is that は adds special emphasis to ウィーンに: in Vienna (and not somewhere else, because this is the focus/context of our discussion), there are many cafés. は is a lot like a colon (:), to be honest.
Awesome, thanks all! I definitely have a better understanding now
Hi all,
I’m diving into the っけ forgetfulness grammar. It seems fairly simple but I haven’t yet found a concise explanation of the differences between だっけ and だったっけ
Example: 何だっけ and 何だったっけ
Do these both mean “what was it (again)”? If so, can anyone help me remember when to use one over the other?
Thanks so much!
せっかく高いお金払ってアメリカにいるんだから、孤軍奮闘して、自分がいる環境を全て英語で固めるしかない。What does the ”ない” do?
The translation in Satori Reader is
“I went to so much trouble and paid so much money to be here in America (“I’m in America, having paid a lot of money”), I’ll just have to be a one-person army and completely consolidate the environment I’m in with English.”
I get everything but what does the ない do? I am confusion.
I talked to a few natives about it, but it’s really hard to get anyone to say anything consistent.
I would say, if you’re talking about something from the past, then using 何だったっけ is probably most natural.
昨日の晩ご飯は、何だったっけ will be more natural than 昨日の晩ご飯は、何だっけ
If you’re talking about something in the future, 何だっけ is probably more natural.
明日の予定は何だっけ will be more natural than 明日の予定は何だったっけ… unless you’ve already been trying to remember this before. Like if you asked once, were told, forgot, and then asked again… then 何だったっけ would be natural because the “past” thing is you being told about it.
At least that’s what I’ve gleaned from talking to natives… however, the only thing I can say for certain is that they have a lot of trouble articulating any difference.
And that’s pretty much how it works in English too, right?
“wait, what’s the password again?” (not been told by this person before) versus “wait, what was the password again?” (they told you a few minutes ago). (I’d find it hard to articulate when asked too)
しかない means “there’s nothing (to do) except X” so it’s the しか part you’ll want to look into.
That’s what makes “I’ll just have to…” part of the translation. More literally it would be like, “There’s nothing I can do except…”
She’s talking about how the other options didn’t fit to her, right? Basically you can imagine she tried inserting them into the sentence to see if they fit and they didn’t seem right to her. One meaning of 対する is for two things to meet and face each other, and you can use it metaphorically as well.
She took the options and matched them against the word in the sentence and they didn’t fit. (選択肢が)ことばに対して合わない.
Hey @Leebo thank you so much for this. Super helpful and I can totally relate to the concept. Cheers!
Thank you! I thought it be something like that!
I saw this earlier in the week and was gonna reply but was busy with work and just got reminded of it when I came across it just now.
In my experience, I can’t say I’ve particularly felt like the ば had any role as a conditional or marking relation between certain things. The example I just came across highlights this pretty well
The two things here are completely on the opposite end of the spectrum of speaking to someone. The second one is clearly not something that would be related to, dependent on, or expected by saying お兄ちゃん at the end of the sentence.
Are you saying it isn’t a conditional in なければならない or 頑張ればできる? Its use as a conditional and how it works compares to たら, と, and なら is usually what people first learn about it.
No it is a conditional in those cases.
I was specifically referring to the case where ば is used in the も～ば～もない grammar since thats what the conversation was about.
Okay sorry, I misunderstood.
It does seem that it’s not really used as a conditional in this pattern, thanks for more examples!
