Short Grammar Questions (Part 1)

But yeah, it’s a little confusing because てはだめ or てはいけない is a taught grammar point, but this is just a stray emphasizing は, so it’s not a pattern we are trained to recognize.

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The more I look at it the more I think you’re right. :smiley:

Yeah I came across てはいる and stuff quite a bit, but I never thought to shorten down the ては. I’ll try and keep that in mind from now on.

Yeah nothing in the ちゃう form would work.

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I’ve been reading a book with so many contractions in it in some characters’ speech, so really nothing would surprise me anymore on that front.

@Frosty-chan Take a look at this article to help with は vs が. It takes a bunch of reads through stuff like this for it to start to sink in, but it’s a start.

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Thank you ill check it out.
I have read and seen a few videos about this but still hit or miss. Seems like most new learners struggle with wa/ga
I guess because it does not really exist in English.

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“発表しました” in the second paragraph of this news article: Isn’t this about the future, so why is it in past tense? Is it something like in English, like: “The poll will be conducted”?

It was announced that it will be conducted on the 24th

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発表 in this context means to announce something, so it’s actually in the past.

沖縄県は14日、工事に賛成か反対か、沖縄県の人たちの意見を聞く投票を24日に行うと発表しました。

Okinawa prefecture['s government] announced on the 14th it will hold a poll on the 24th to ask the opinion of the people from Okinawa about if they agree with the construction work or not.

I tried to keep the English structure similar to the Japanese one for easier understanding.
The thing is although the poll is in the future, the announcement is in the past.

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Ah, yes, I overlooked the announcement part. Thank you both.

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Hey so Im currently studying て-Form and I came across 死ぬ which becomes 死んで in て-Form and should mean “Please die”. Now if you put the いる at the end of that you apparently get “to be dead” instead of “dying”. So is there any way to describe the action of dying? Do you just use “亡くなって” instead or does that also mean “to be dead”?

Thanks in advance!

何?!?

The first option that comes to my mind is 死にかける, which translates to “to be dying”, “to be on the verge of dying” or “to be about to die”. There is also 死にかかる, but I don’t see it often.

But depending on the context, 死にそう or even 死のうとしている could sound more natural.

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I know your question is more about how ている works with state-change verbs, which SyncroPC already started addressing, but just to be clear, 死んで would not mean “please die” exactly.

The て form alone is neutral. It could mean a command, but in that case it wouldn’t be a polite command with “please” implied.

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~て-form on its own tends to be an abbreviation for ~てください, which I think is where the “please” subtext is coming from.

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I understand Leebo’s point. The て alone is the so called “imperative” of so many languages. But if it has a please, commandment, order, suggestion or whatever other nuance, it’s a whole different story.

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Yeah, I get where the idea came from, though I don’t know if you can say that it’s an abbreviation for it. But ください is just… not there when you don’t say it. So you’re removing the politeness. It’s not rude, like the command form, but it’s still more neutral.

EDIT: And the more I think about it, the plain て form with no ください is on the firmer side of things, if you think of てください and command form as being equidistant from “100% neutral”.

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I think the imperative is still something different; for 死ぬ it would be 死ね.

(which was made famous by Japan’s Prime Minister: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe accidentally tells all women to die | The Independent | The Independent) :rofl:

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I mean imperative on the linguistic meaning, not the common use of the word. Any grammar book will list the imperative as the mood used for making commandments, requests and so on, regardless of intensity.

Grammatically speaking, “Please stay here for a moment” is as much on the imperative mood as “Die!”

While the -え form is obviously on the imperative, that doesn’t make 座ってください any less imperative, from a linguistic point of view.

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Yeah, strictly speaking ください is itself the imperative of くださる.

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OK, if you’re speaking about the general intention behind the sentence, then I agree with you.

(admittedly I was also looking for an opportunity to post that link :grin: because I think it is really hilarious)

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