Short Grammar Questions (Part 1)

Is と not short for something in that case too? I never considered that it could be used directly with 心配する. From what you linked to it does seem like a common phrase, but I’m still curious if it’s technically short for something.

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What is the function of that で before the comma in the following sentence?

英語が母国語でない人、ネイティブレベルや上級の英語を話す人もいれば、そうでない人もいます。

Some non-native speakers speak English at a native or advanced level, while others do not.

Would a literal translation be something like this?

英語が母国語でない人で = in this group of non-native speakers of English
ネイティブレベルや上級の英語を話す人もいれば = there may be both people who speak a native or a high level of English
そうでない人もいます = and people that do not

So why not は or が instead of で?

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I’m not sure but if I had to guess there is an omitted の中?

英語が母国語でない人の中で、ネイティブレベルや上級の英語を話す人もいれば、そうでない人もいます。

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Because that’s not the role of で here. One could use では, but it’s not necessary. As @sergiop pointed out, this is one way of expressing the idea of “among”.

I also like your translation better than the original translation which misses the role of で and the use of 〜ば〜も.

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Just a quick question about something I saw in 日本人の知らない日本語 vol. 4

それはわかっているというのでは

I’m having a real hard time finding out what that means. The closest I got was というものではない, though of course it’s a bit different using もの instead of の.

edit:

All in all と as citation and という give me huge headaches constantly. I don’t quite think there’s a page I haven’t been to on the topic. How did you all come to understand them?

That’s a sentence fragment, do you have more context?

More generally, I don’t recall having much trouble with という. It’s just joining the quoted fragment to the rest of the sentence, and generally something else is doing the heavy grammatical lifting of imparting specific meaning. There are multiple kinds of と, but for the quote version in verbs like ~と思う and so on I just think of it as “this verb takes a と-marked phrase”.

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If it’s phrased like a question, usually if you see it ending in のでは it’s short for のではないですか (“Isn’t it the case that…?”) or something along those lines. Trying to get confirmation from someone about something (or suggesting something is in a certain way in a more indirect way). Something along the lines of “それはわかっているでしょう?”.

If it’s not phrased like a question, I don’t know what else it can be without more context.

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Hey Guys! Quick question: “Today i am going to Town with my friend” is the correct way to say it (Writing in Romanji): Kyou wa tomodachi to machi de ite imasu?

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I would go with: Kyou wa tomodachi to machi ni ikimasu.
Your sentence is in the progressive and means something along the lines of “I’m together with my friend in the city today”

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Ah, i see. Thank you!!

I’m not sure if that’s really the case. The English translation provided is accurate, but somewhat misleading as to how the grammar works. This is how I would translate it while preserving as much of the grammatical structure as possible:

‘Even as there are people whose native language is not English and who speak native-level or advanced English, there are also people who are not like that.’

で here is just a connecting form, specifically the て-form of だ. It’s not a particle. As such, I’m also not certain if it can be replaced by では here, because while I think the sentence would still be understood, I don’t think it’s particularly natural. In my opinion, everything before 人もいれば exists to describe that 人 i.e. to characterise a particular sort of people for the sake of discussion. The context is what tells us that we’re likely talking about other non-native speakers who are not as fluent in English, because it’s not very sensible to discuss, say, native speakers of English even though they aren’t in the first category in the sentence, seeing as such a comparison probably won’t provide useful information.


I think more context is needed as well, but another possible way of parsing this is ‘with/from the fact that one says that one understands that, … (some sort of conclusion can be drawn or some action can be taken)’. I’m not particularly convinced by this interpretation without the second half of the sentence, but I think it’s possible.

No guarantees that this is a good explanation, and you might find it too long, but have you read this?

It happens that it was a response to one of your earlier questions about the use of と in と頑張って, and I did go into most of – maybe all? – the ways I’ve seen と used as a quotation particle, in the broadest sense of the word.

I might have used too many kanji, or used certain uncommon words in my examples that I thought were fairly common, or left out translations I should have included, so feel free to ask me to clarify anything.

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I think I see what you mean! Yes, that probably makes more sense than で implying the full の中で or うちで as that wouldn’t be grammatically correct, right?

I was confused by the comma honestly.

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@pm215 @jneapan

ここの卒業生で口語を流暢に話す方にお話を伺う

ドイツ学生:大阪の大学に留学してたから

凪子先生:じゃあ大阪弁も

ドイツ学生:そらあんまわからへんねんけど

それはわかっているというのでは

That’s the entire panel, guys. The part I’m stumped on isn’t being said out loud, it’s one of those things that’s written outside of a speech bubble near the character.

@Jonapedia

I remember that reply, it was great and I read it word for word, but I must of missed something. Thanks for pulling it back up, I’ll read it again today.

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No problem! I hope it helps! Do say so if you’re still confused afterwards though. :slight_smile:

EDIT:
I see @jneapan typing, but about the panel, I think this means his earlier reply still applies!

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So I was right. The guy literally replies in Kansai dialect that he doesn’t really understand it, then he gets a それはわかっているというのでは. Whenever you see a trailing のでは like that it’s almost always a missing ないか implied after it. The reply’s nuance is something like “Wait, but you do understand it”.

分かっているのではないか? “Isn’t it the case that you do understand?”

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How to express that you’re fighting for something? If you’re fighting a war for your country, would that be 国に戦争? What about expressing that you’re fighting against someone, for something? Would 国に土星人と戦争 work?

For something would very likely be のために
母国のために戦う or 我が国のために戦う

Against/with would be に or と
敵の国と戦う

戦争する is more like “waging war” I think.

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Thank you! Contextually I figured this was the case, so I’m glad I was on the right track. For my own knowledge, though, I would still like to know the function of という. Why couldn’t she of said this without it?

Here’s some info on という

http://www.guidetojapanese.org/blog/2006/02/12/defining-things/

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About the use of で in the post (which I think came from a WK context sentence for 上級): Assuming the sentence is grammatical, I’m curious why the use of で can’t be the particle?

In an article from Tofugu on the particle で in the section で for Categories, they seem to imply that で can replace の中で:

For example, if your friend asked you what your favorite sport is, you might reply:

スポーツ 好きなのはサッカーだよ。
Among all sports, my favorite is soccer.

In this use, で specifies the category being discussed, スポーツ (sports). Due to the fact that there are many different activities that fall into this category of “sports,” it’s common to use the phrase 〜の中で with this use. So in our example, we could also say スポーツの中で to mean “among all sports.”

In the example sentence from the OP, it seems to make sense to me as the shortened の中で and clarified with the 読点 comma.

I’m not disagreeing with your interpretation at all – I’m just trying to better understand the grammar (especially if I misunderstood that article I quoted).

BTW: Thank you very much for your fantastic explanation of という. It’s very helpful to think of と at times as a framing particle – 勉強になりました.

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