ahhh thank you Syncro
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Nice you gave us the example. I didn’t realize that NameはNameで meant the same name in both. I was reading it as AはBで instead of AはAで
I think your translation is pretty good. This expression mostly means that what you are going to say next is typical, unique or characteristic of A. Depending on the sentence it could either get an “as expected” nuance or a more “in its own way” one.
A nice way to replace it is 「AはAなりに」, which is a lot easier to search on internet I guess.
I couldn’t find a nice grammar website discussing 「AはAで」directly, but there is this Stack Exchange question and also this paper (full Japanese) on expressions with repetition in Japanese that briefly mentions it, saying you could either see it as a conjugated form of 「AはAだ。」(read the paper) or understand it as having the same meaning as 「AはAなりに」
2.3.1.「A は A で」
「A は A だ」の活用形とも考えられるが、「A は A だ」の用法とは異なる意味を表して
いるため別に分類した。
（34）学生は学生で、社会人は社会人で充実してる内容が違う。
（35）馬鹿は馬鹿で一生懸命生きてるんだから。
いずれも、「A は A なりに」の意味で用いられている。
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Thank you so much! This is exactly what I was looking for!
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コートを着ないで出かけました。
vs
バスに乗らないで歩いて友達の家に行きます。
I thought ru verbs were supposed to drop their ru when conjugating to nai, but half of them seem to change to ranai instead. I expect 来る and する to be exceptions to this but am I missing something else?
乗る is not a ru-verb, just a u-verb that coincidentally ends in る. As a rule, when you have an a, o or u sound before the る, it will always be a u-verb (like with のる in this case).
Only when you have an e or i sound, like きる, it can be a ru-verb (but doesn’t have to, see 切る or 帰る, they are u-verbs even though they have an e / i sound before the る)
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Thank you! *revisits early chapters on verbs
edit … my materials did in fact say that they’re sometimes called iru/eru verbs but somehow I overlooked that and managed to study another 9 months before I hit a wall due to overlooking that fact. v-v
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@SyncroPC already did a great job at explaining, but I thought I would say something too.
I interpret カンガはカンガで as ending in the -te form of である. As such the sentence is just saying, Kanga is Kanga and (therefore) she said…
Using the -te form to link clauses and to create a causal relation between the clauses?
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That makes it a lot of sense and it makes it really easy to remember. Thank you!
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初めての飛行機なので怖いと思うけど、怖がらないで ね。
(This is your first time on an airplane so I think it might be scary, but don’t feel scared.)
Can a senpai explain to me the use of で here? Why isn’t it only 「怖がらない」?
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That’s the negative version of the て-form. You’re probably aware that the て-form is used to make demands/requests. If you want to tell someone to not do something, you basically just tack on で to its informal negation (and add ください to make it formal if need be, just like with the て-form). 怖がる is the base verb, 怖がらない is “to not be scared”, and 怖がらないで is “don’t be scared.”
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I understand completely. I think I knew all these things individually, but couldn’t piece them together. Thank you, pahko-senpai.
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サンドイッチ みたいに 、パンに挟んでみた。
“I tried sandwiching it between two pieces of bread, similar to a sandwich”
If it was な instead of に, it would mean something like “I inserted a bread-like sandwich”, right? The に is there to indicate that the verb is the thing being modified, and not the noun (パン)?
(Trying to understand why に is used here, when my first guess would be that な should be used because the structure of the grammar point on BunPro is Noun/Verb + みたいに + Verb/いAdj; Noun/Verb + みたいな + Noun, and みたい is surrounded by nouns in this sentence).
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You are correct. The に (in this case) means the clause is modifying the verb. The な would modify the noun after it.
So in this case it is 挟んでみた like a sandwich. (putting it between two slices of bread)
And not a パン like a sandwich (maybe a square slice of bread?)
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Thank you!
約束を守ることができなくてすみません。
“I am sorry that I am unable to keep my promise.”
I don’t understand why it’s できなくて and not できない？
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Generally speaking, you can’t have two verbs back to back without some grammar modification.
But more specifically て + [apology word] is a standard form.
行かなくてすみません
しなくてごめん
Thanking people is similar.
来てくれてありがとう
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I’ve started using Bunpro and I got the following example sentence:
あそこ のバスに乗る。
The translation given was:
To ride the bus over there .
I don’t quite understand what this is saying.
Due to the use of の I know that it’s indicating the bus that is over there, not riding the bus to over there, but I can’t determine what to ride is indicating.
Is it a complete sentence?
If so is it something akin to “The bus that is ride-able is over there”?
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They gave the English in the infinitive as if the Japanese was one solid verb and not a sentence in the non-past. That’s what the “to” is. Just like when you answer verb vocab here on WK with to at the beginning.
You could assume the implied subject is “I” and translate it as “I’ll ride the bus that is over there” or “I ride the bus that is over there” if you wanted.
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I like to think of 乗る as meaning “boarding” more than “riding”, personally.
The sentence means that the speaker (presumably “I”) is going to board the bus that’s some ways away.
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As much as I understand why the non-past verb is being translated into the infinitive, sometimes I can’t help but wonder whether it wouldn’t be better to have the entire ‘[I/you/he/she/they] will X / is Xing / Xs’ thing instead.
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