Short Grammar Questions (Part 1)

Only 人は would work from a grammar standpoint but the みな makes a stronger “really everbody” instead of just “people”
人々は would similarily like 人 just generally and neutrally mean people. Not necessarily “literally everyone”
みなは alone is the strongest contender to not change much but I think the 人は in this case emphasizes the “human” element in this statement. It’s just a feeling from my side though.

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I think so, but the difference would be that (with the right context) みな could simply indicate everyone or everything within a set that had already been mentioned.

人は alone would probably work, but it would just be a general statement about people that doesn’t necessarily apply to absolutely everyone. 人々は to me feels like people in general, but within a certain (geographical?) context, like the people referred to by 村の人々. 人達は has a similar feel, if you ask me, and might be even less general, because it makes plurality important, as though there’s a particular group of multiple people being discussed.

In my opinion, 人はみな, while certainly not being the only way to say the same thing, quite clearly and effectively conveys the idea that ‘people all have…’ a certain something. My way of parsing this from a grammatical standpoint is that みな is simply a sort of adverb of quantity, much like 二枚 in CDを二枚買った.

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Just randomly saw this while reading a Wiki:
image

So I googled 天内 but I can’t seem to find it on Jisho:
image

Translate doesn’t like it:
image

I have to write it as Hiragana to get the translation of :

image

Does anyone know why it would be written in Kanji if it’s not actually translatable in Kanji? I’m so confused. I realise they wrote あまない next to it, but Idk why no resources can translate the Kanji 天内.

Kinda found the answer, I think it’s a name - I was confused because the people in the panel don’t have that name, but maybe it’s being shouted. So nevermind.

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Aye I would agree.

天内あまな莉子りこ uses the same characters for her name:

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Grammar question:

Watching the YT videos of cure dolly she presented this sentence

アリスはしゃべるウサギを見たことがない

She presents a translation of this sentence that doesn’t make 100% sense to me.
To me it sounds more like ‘As for Alice, seeing a talking rabbit is a non existent thing’ (literally). Is this correct?
The first thing that came to my mind was ‘why doesn’t this mean: < a thing has never seen a talking rabbit > ? After all, isn’t the ‘thing’ (abstract) the subject performing the action (miru verb)?
Also, why the subject comes after the object and verb instead of first thing like I usually see? Is it just a narrative choice used for old fashioned story tales?

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~ことがない is a phrase that means “have never done/experienced ~ before”. It’s the negative form of the following:

https://jlptsensei.com/learn-japanese-grammar/たことがある-ta-koto-ga-aru-meaning/

しゃべる modifies ウサギ = talking rabbit
を = object marker
みた = have seen

“Have seen a talking rabbit”

If you insert that into the set phrase above, you get:

Alice has never seen a talking rabbit before.

The subject for みた is the zero-が. Since you’re reading Cure Dolly, that should be familiar to you.

The subject for ない is こと.

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Oh so this is sort of a fixed expression that is mostly found at the end of the sentence?

Damn! I missed the damn zero ga because I was too focused on the koto ga :man_facepalming:

It’s very likely to be, but Japanese will happily use anything as a noun phrase anywhere in a sentence. :wink:

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Yes, the 見たことがない part can very easily be used as a noun descriptor to mean “never before seen” or similar.

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Then, I hope that when I will start reading I’ll get used to it quickly😂 in your experience is it something that confuses a lot for a long time? I’ve been thinking about that sentence for a whole day

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No, I wouldn’t worry about it. You’ll see things like みたことがある a lot in reading.

And like @yamitenshi ’s reply to you in the Language Questions thread, sometimes you just have to accept the meaning for now and get more familiar with it as you come across it.

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Will do, thanks for the suggestion bro!!

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Question

In the sentence

先ずは、下を見てみたけど、暗すぎて、何も見えなかった

I get the meaning of the whole sentence but I don’t get the grammar of three points:

  1. 暗すぎて what is this? It should be something like 暗い (dark) attached to すぎる (to exceed) in the sense of “it was too dark, and therefore…” but apart from it’s general meaning I don’t really know what’s happening there and what it is (only thing I know is why it ends in the て form, because it’s a sentence that has it’s logical continuation in the following sentence

  2. 何も what is this, how it’s composed and what’s its logic? I searched on internet and didn’t find a clear explanation

  3. For what I understood, 見える means “to be seen”. Is this a particular construct of the standard 見る verb or it’s a normal standalone verb by itself? (I ask it because the kanji is the same and got suspicious by that え attached at the beginning).
    Thanks in advance!

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  1. Yes, すぎる is an auxiliary verb that attach to a verb or adjective. A common grammar point.
    すぎる sugiru: Too Much in Japanese - Learn Japanese Online
    暗すぎて is the te-form of 暗すぎる

  2. 何も+negative verb = nothing. Same for 誰も+negative verb (nobody). I don’t think there is really any benefit to go deeper than that… Maybe you could say that も often mean “even” or “as much as”, so something like 誰もいない could be literally “There isn’t even someone.”

  3. 見える is a separate verb from 見る (but clearly etymologically related). Xが見える is literally closer to “X is visible”. 何も見えなかった = “nothing was visible” but in normal English we would say something like “I couldn’t see anything”

So here 暗すぎて is the reason for 何も見えなかった.

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Awesome!! Every doubt is cleared :grin:

Where did you get this sentence? I haven’t seen まずは written in kanji in ages. lol

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Hmm now that I think, it was written in kana, I changed it with 先ず because I just studied it on WK like that. Isn’t it used frequently?

Checking again the WK item, it says that it’s usually written in kana, I must’ve forgot it

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I did level 4 on Wanikani 3 years ago. I think I’ve seen it written with kanji maybe a few times since then.

I mean, I’m probably not as big of a reader as some of the other guys on here, but yeah, I don’t think the kanji version is that common.

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Question

In the sentence:
“For how long did you guys talk?”
“わかりません、たくさんわらいました”
(“I don’t know, but I laughed a lot”)

What is that が after the verb? I never saw a subject particle after a verb, only the questioning か or after a noun but never after a verb. Can someone explain?

が is but. You add it after.

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