Oh right, I was so immersed into conjugation, I begun inventing stuff without realizing
この碁では17子もの石を、井山さんは捨てます。
井山さん is a Go player, the book is talking about sacrificial stones (stones that you throw away, i.e., let your opponent capture). What is bugging me is the 17子もの石 part. What is 子 doing here? Is it somehow a counter for stones? Also is もの： 物 or is it the two particles （も and の). Thanks for any help.
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子（し）seems to be a counter for Go stones as you suggested:
碁盤上（対局中）の碁石は「子（し）」「目（もく）」と数えます。
If that is the case, the grammar is も＋の. It gives the nuance of “he sacrificed as much as 17 stones”
If you reorder it in a more standard way you could say it like below, which I believe is easier to parse:
井山さんは石を17子も捨てます。
After that it is just reordering (and the needed の to put a number before a noun)
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Good morning,
Quick question
While studying verbs I had the impression that ある and いる do the same thing but aru is only used for non animate objects while iru is for animate things such as animals and humans. Is this wrong?
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That’s right, ある is the “existence verb” for inanimate things, いる is the “existence verb” for animate things.
There are some cases however where something seemingly inanimate is referred to as いる, such as with taxis, cars or buses, but that’s because you’re kind of referring to the driver/people in that case (i.e. the person inside the vehicle is relevant, because a taxi without a driver isn’t really a useful means of transportation for instance). So when you’re referring to a taxi coming to pick you up you might say タクシーがいる, but when you’re just referring to the vehicle and any person that may or may not be inside is completely irrelevant (like, for instance, referring to a parked taxi) it’s still going to be referred to with ある.
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Awesome explanation, thanks, now it’s all clear
Another question - is aru used in the same way as iru when in a present continuous form?
For example, if I say that the dog is eating I could say いぬはたべている
But let’s say that the action is being made by an inanimate object, let’s say エレベーターは行って(いる/ある)
Which one is the correct? Is it aru used this way?
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いる is used for present continuous, regardless of whether something is animate or not.
てある is actually a totally different grammar point which means “something is in the state of [verb] because of the actions of someone”.
For instance
まどがあいている “the window is open” (no nuance about why it’s open)
まどがあけてある “the window is open” (with the nuance that someone purposely opened it)
Don’t worry about that if you haven’t gotten to it yet.
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Very clear, thanks, I just did the negative and trying to get used to it’s forms with verbs and adjectives. i only studied the present, past and -te form till now, no other things.
Do you know any way I could practice what I’m learning about conjugations?
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Awesome!!!
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Quick note that tenses with motion verbs like 来る and 行く work a little differently and if you wanted to say that “the elevator is coming” that would be エレベーターが来る. Also, 行く is for movement away from the speaker’s perspective and 来る - towards.
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I meant ‘the elevator is moving’ as we say in italian to specify that the elevator is not still and it’s just going up or down in a certain situation but you can ignore this, it was the only example I could make with my limited vocabulary 
I was ignoring this, useful to know!
I tried this for an hour, it does it’s work, really really well made, would suggest everyone trying to practice with verbs.
Thank you for letting me know and thank you to the creator, this will be of great help
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The most basic way to say “the elevator is moving” would be エレベーターが動いている
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Thanks for the correction 
Context for this sentence is that they’re doing a haunted house for their class in the festival. These two girls were asked to hide together under a blanket to scare people. They were under the blanket for a bit earlier. They got out for a minute and one of them that is opposed to it when asked to go back says:「それに。。。汗臭かったりしたらやなんだもん」In this sentence it sounds like she is saying “Besides… I stink of sweat so I don’t want to do it!”.
While I think I got the meaning right, I have no idea what したら is doing in that sentence? I looked it up and came across a grammar point for 「としたら」meaning in the case of~; assuming~; if A then B (conditional). but I can’t see how that would work here?
I believe she’s talking about the towel rather than herself or maybe the smell of sweat in general.
“What if it’s, like, sweaty and stuff?”
汗臭ったり sweaty like things
したら if it is
や non-exhaustive “and”
なんだもん whatever else, assuming it’s もん as in もの
That’s my best guess.
Edit: Now that I read it again, “If we sweat, then what?”, kinda fits too.
There’s definitely a feeling that it’s not something she wants to do in any case.
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I think she’s talking about herself because earlier they were under the blanket for a bit and she thought to herself 「やばい。。。本格的に汗が。ホントに蒸し風呂状態じゃん。。。」which I took it to mean she was getting really sweaty from it being like a steam bath under the blanket. The scene is a few pages long so maybe I should have provided more context 
With that additional context, not sure if that changes how one would interpret the sentence from my other post?
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