I’m not sure if it’s ‘required’. However, ものだ on its own can just generically indicate strong emotion or refer to a common trend or habit. Without よく, I don’t think I would interpret ものだ alone as an exclamatory statement meaning ‘how could…’, and in fact, what I’m used to hearing (in anime, anyhow) is 「よくも！」That’s how most exclamatory/accusatory statements meaning ‘how could you…?’ start, and very often, the statement doesn’t even end: よくも alone is enough to convey the entire sentiment.
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I was looking up に対{して / する} on imabi and saw the following below.
昨日、水不足に関して節水制限が導入されました。X
昨日、水不足に対して節水制限が導入されました。〇Yesterday, water restrictions were introduced concerning the water shortage.
I don’t really understand why に対して is used in this sentence, because there doesn’t seem to be any opposition / confrontation involved? Unless the water restrictions “confronted” the water shortage? (I don’t know what I’m saying 
). Also, does replacing に関して with に関する make the first sentence correct?
A short grammar question in concept, although not the point of this thread (because I had it answered outside this thread).
Shoutout to the Tofugu team for the 〜ながら (simultaneous actions) article. I was thinking about that grammar point this morning and wasn’t sure what determined which action to include first or why.
ながら attaches to the action that is considered background information.
Consise, clear, exactly what I wanted to know. 
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I think it could be correct. However, I have a feeling the phrase would be interpreted as ‘measures relating to water shortage’ i.e. as a general statement, rather than as a response to a particular incident. That brings me to your other question.
I think you’re very close to guessing why 対して was used. 対 means ‘to face’, right? It tends to indicate that something is directed towards something else, and appears in words like 対策=‘measure in response to something’ or ‘countermeasure’. That’s what it indicates. 関, on the other hand, just indicates a link. Notice how it contains the door radical, 門. The reason Japan’s main island is separated into 関東 and 関西 is because there’s a portal, a 関, somewhere around Kyoto that marks the divide. That portal is the link between the two sides of Honshu. As such, the problem here is that if you use 関して to link the first half of the sentence to the action 導入される, you’re saying that these actions were made ‘with concern to’ the shortage. Now, that’s not entirely false, but it’s unnatural for two reasons: firstly, it’s strange because what comes after 関して is usually some sort of information about the topic marked by 関して. I think「水不足に関して、昨日、節水制限が導入されました」would be possible because the second half of the sentence reports information, though I’m not completely sure. The second reason it’s unnatural is because the restrictions were clearly imposed ‘yesterday’ in response to the water shortage. That idea of doing something with something else in mind calls for 対して. (There’s another verb you can use for responding, which is 応えて, which we’re more used to seeing as 答えて, but that’s more like… ‘answer’, ‘reply’, ‘meet’. It’s a more ‘action and reaction’ or ‘call and answer’ sort of ‘response’. 対して tends to be about indicating a target or point of focus.)
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Is ば(いい)なあ used for both future and present situations? As in “I hope it’ll will rain on tomorrow” and “If only it was raining now”?
Ah that makes a lot of sense 
. Thank you for using vocabulary words to explain the grammar. Just as a follow up question, I noticed (from the same imabi article) that 対して can be translated as “for” in certain sentences:
和平に対する北朝鮮の疑惑は日本の防衛を脅かしています。 Suspicions of North Korea for peace threatens Japanese security.
How is it normally used in such cases?
In this case, I’d say that there’s an overlap with 関する. However, this sentence feels wrong, or at least unclear, if you ask me. For that matter, I’d just like to point out that I think the English translations for both this sentence and the previous sentence are weird. I strongly believe that ‘concerning’ is not the first expression one would reach for regarding the water shortage example; something like ‘in order to address’ would be preferred. Similarly, here, ‘for’ is a very strange word to use because it’s not as if ‘suspicions’ can be repurposed to achieve ‘peace’.
I also feel like the sentence in Japanese itself is unclear or makes little sense. 北朝鮮の疑惑 sounds like ‘North Korea’s suspicions’ i.e. North Korea is the one who doubts something. My personal opinion is that this would then mean that everything up to は translates as ‘North Korea’s suspicions with regard to peace’. That itself makes little sense in the current international context because North Korea is rarely seen as being suspicious of offers of peace since it tends to be viewed as the suspicious party. Plus, there aren’t many offers of peace being directed at North Korea anyway. Furthermore, if you take the sentence as a whole, we have another problem: even if North Korea were suspicious of something with regard to (making?) peace, how would that threaten Japan’s national security/defence? There’s no clear link unless we know that North Korea is acting on its suspicions and taking action against Japan. In my opinion, here, 北朝鮮の疑惑 should be replaced with 北朝鮮 へ の疑惑 or 北朝鮮 に対する 疑惑, because I’m pretty sure what’s actually being discussed here is Japan’s suspicions with regard to North Korea. 和平に対する can probably be replaced with 和平に関する or 和平についての. In that case, the sentence would translate as ‘Suspicions surrounding/regarding/directed at North Korea concerning/with regard to/on the subject of peace threaten Japanese/Japan’s security.’ (Mind you, there’s even a subject-verb agreement error in the word ‘threatens’ in the original translation. I don’t know if that was just a mistake or a sign that the sentence was taken from a source that might lack credibility.)
Now, one might say that since の is really just a particle indicating that one thing is characterised by another, but my intuition based on a similar particle in Chinese, along with the usage examples I pulled up on ejje.weblio.jp, tell me that in Aの疑惑, A is either the party doing the suspecting or the thing that someone is being suspected for. Do tell me if you find another counterexample, but for now – even though this sounds very presumptuous on my part as a learner – I’m going to say that this Japanese sentence is probably poorly constructed, if not incorrect. If I’m wrong, then I’d appreciate corrections accompanied by explanations and examples. Thank you.
EDIT: I guess I’ll ask a fluent friend for his opinion in the meantime just in case.
In short, my answer to this question is that it’s always the same: even when に対する can be translated as ‘regarding’, the key is that it has to express the idea of confronting or being directed at something. It highlights a target. It also often implicitly carries the idea of a ‘pair’ within it, which is why – when you combine that with its other meanings – it gets used for things like opposites, opponents or counterparts, because two things that confront each other or are directed at each other are often one of those three things. I don’t think I’ve come across a single example in dictionaries for which this general rule doesn’t apply.
I think you could even take this in the ‘near future’ sense, because it would still be equivalent: ‘if only it rained now’ would achieve the same result if it were granted as a wish, because it’s currently not raining, and if the wish were granted, it would immediately start raining thereafter. That aside, Japanese doesn’t have a separate future tense, so I don’t see why not, particularly since time can be indicated using time markers like 明日 and 今. Finally, ば can be used even for hypothetical situations in the past (e.g. ‘if you had asked me, I would have told you’), so I don’t see why one couldn’t use it for the present if it can be used for the future (and the present ‘if I do X (right now)’) when discussing cause and effect.
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I appreciate the detailed reply.
I did find some other examples from a Japanese site teaching English, which translated one of に対して 's usage as “for”. However, I think can kinda see how things are being directed in these example sentences (correct me if I’m mistaken).
責任者であるにも関わらず、部の長年の課題を放置してきたことに対する彼の評価は厳しくなってきています。He is being criticized for neglecting long-running issues of the department despite being the director.
お客様による誤った製品の使用を原因とする損害に対しては、我が社は一切の責任を負いかねますのでご了承ください。We do not accept any responsibility for any damage arising from the misuse of our products.
リンジーさんは発表者に抜擢されたことに対してとても感謝している様子でした。 Lindsey seemed to have been very thankful for being chosen as the spokesperson.
In sentence 1, the 評価は厳しくなってきています-ing (reaction) is confronting the neglecting long-running issues (action)? In sentence 2, not accepting responsibility (reaction) is confronting the damage arising from the misuse (action) ? In sentence 3, Lindsey’s being thankful (reaction) is directed at being chosen as the spokesperson (action) ?
That would be 的 I presume?
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Yup, I think you’re starting to get the hang of it. Notice how all the reactions/results are directed at some sort of cause or background consideration?
Yup. That’s the one.
However, I spoke to my friend and he said that
was probably a sentence written with the idea of North Korea being suspicious in mind, because if North Korea believes peace is impossible, then it’s more likely to see its neighbours as enemies and to attack them. I guess that from that perspective, this sentence makes sense. I still think that the English translation was bad, but it seems the Japanese sentence itself is fine, so I retract that part of what I said earlier.
PS: Sorry, I took a while to reply because I was looking for the reason 〜兼ねる can mean ‘cannot 〜’, since the most common meaning of the kanji in Chinese is ‘A-cum-B’ (i.e. something is A and B at the same time) and other sorts of simultaneous actions/states. Turns out there’s an old literary meaning – ‘to exhaust’, ‘to do to the full’ – which I think can be extended to give the ‘cannot’ meaning. For example, in the sentence above, the idea might be that the company has already taken all the responsibility it possibly can, so it cannot and will not take any more than that.
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Right…I see 
It makes sense now.
When I start covering N2 grammar I’ll ask about it for sure 
. In any case, thanks for the help as always!
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Hahaha. He now says that maybe it is a little strange. Eh, either way, I guess a logical interpretation exists, even if it might not have been the best way to phrase things.
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I am trying to understand this quote from my Hobonichi:
筋肉をつけようと思ってやってないんですよ。ハンマーを遠くに投げられる体をつくっているというか、遠くへ飛ばせたときの体がいいんであって、ここに筋肉をつければ遠くに飛ぶ、というような考え方は、逆だと思います。それは、話が簡単すぎます。
I am a bit confused about the syntax of that long sentence.
I imagine ハンマーを遠くに投げられる体をつくっている is a complete sentence in its own right, but then the speaker kind of backtracks by saying ‘or rather’ (というか). I would’ve expected another ‘whole sentence’ with a dictionary form at the end, but instead I get a て-form (遠くへ飛ばせたときの体がいいんであって). Why is this? Is it because the 考え方 is all of 遠くへ飛ばせたときの体がいいんであって、ここに筋肉をつければ遠くに飛ぶ? And the dictionary verb I’d expect after というか comes all the way at the end, with 思います?
Essentially, yes. The bits before and after というか are two possible descriptions of the 考え方. The 逆だ at the end is an assessment with respect to the first sentence, I think.
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So:
筋肉をつけようと思ってやってないんですよ。
I am not trying to build muscle.
逆だと思います。
I think that it is the other way around
というような考え方は、
the way of thinking that,
(a) ハンマーを遠くに投げられる体をつくっている
I am building a body that can throw a hammer far,
(b) というか、遠くへ飛ばせたときの体がいいんであって、ここに筋肉をつければ遠くに飛ぶ、
instead of, if my body is good when it hurls it far and I build muscle to this end, it will fly far.
それは、話が簡単すぎます。
I think that is putting it too simplistically.
Original source. I think the general point is: it’s no use just building muscle, because throwing a hammer far doesn’t just require strength, but also technique.
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Not quite. I would break it down like this:
筋肉をつけようと思ってやってないんですよ。
I am not thinking about building/aiming to build muscle when I do it, you know?
(a) ハンマーを遠くに投げられる体をつくっているというか、
‘I am building a body that can throw a hammer far’, or rather
(b) 遠くへ飛ばせたときの体がいいんであって、ここに筋肉をつければ遠くに飛ぶ、というような
‘A body is good/desirable when it has achieved the ability to make [the hammer] fly far, and if I build muscle here [in this zone of my body], it will fly far.’ Such a
考え方は、
way of thinking
逆だと思います。
is the opposite [of my way of thinking]/is going in reverse, I think.
それは、話が簡単すぎます。
That’s putting it too simplistically.
For (b), I had to go with a roundabout translation to capture the meaning of 飛ばせた時, because I believe that refers to a point in time when/after the body succeeded in making the hammer fly far. I know that just saying ‘a body that can…’ is more natural in English, but I wanted to give the meaning in the original Japanese a bit more emphasis.
More or less, I suppose, but the section title is ‘before movement, there is feel’. I think it’s more about being in tune with the task instead of doing it mechanically.
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@Phryne
I would actually break it down a bit differently:
筋肉をつけようと思ってやってないんですよ。
I am not thinking about building/aiming to build muscle when I do it, you know?
ハンマーを遠くに投げられる体をつくっているというか、
I am building a body that can throw a hammer far, or rather
遠くへ飛ばせたときの体がいいんであって、
a body that can throw the hammer far is good. (using the same roundabout translation that you used)
ここに筋肉をつければ遠くに飛ぶ、というような考え方は、
The way of thinking “if I build muscle here, (the hammer) will fly far” (this is not his way of thinking)
逆だと思います。
is backwards, in my opinion.
それは、話が簡単すぎます。
That’s putting it too simplistically.
I think he's saying that rather than thinking about muscles only, you should think about what you want to achieve by doing exercise. Rather than thinking "I'm building muscle and then (coincidentally) I will be able to throw the hammer far", he's thinking "I am building a body that can throw a hammer" first and foremost, and not specifically thinking about muscle groups, etc. The 話が簡単すぎます at the end does sound like he's referring to technique as well. (If you read the original source a bit further, he does talk about the importance of 感覚. I guess this is referring to getting used to the movements and getting used to using your muscles in a certain way (when hammer throwing), etc)
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@Myria I am a bit torn here, because the way you break it up makes more sense to me in terms of what it’s saying, but @Jonapedia’s way makes more sense to me syntactically. If ハンマーを遠くに投げられる体をつくっている and 遠くへ飛ばせたときの体がいいんであって are supposed to be ‘equivalents’ separated by というか, why does one have a dictionary verb and one have a て-form?
I agree that というか makes the parts before and after equivalents. However the のであって in part (b) clearly separates the 遠くへ飛ばせたときの体がいいんであって and ここに筋肉をつければ遠くに飛ぶ (at least that’s what it feels like to me).
The のであって is simply using the て-form to connect two sentences that could stand on their own. The である might be used to make the separation more clear (I haven’t gone looking for a source or anything on that)
Since we need one part to be the way of thinking he disagrees with, it goes
(His way of thinking)というか(Different phrasing of his way of thinking)のであって、(opposite of his way of thinking)というような考え方は、逆だと思います。
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After thinking about it, I agree with @Myria. In all honesty, something felt wrong about how I was interpreting the て-form, but I couldn’t see what: putting であって on the same level as 飛ぶ (which is what I did) makes no sense because the desirability of a body that can do something doesn’t at all explain why the hammer would fly far (as a justification), nor can it precede the flying as part of a sequence. This is only made worse by the fact (and this is something I missed) that んであって doesn’t just feel like a justification: it is a structure that indicates a reason or cause is being provided – a lengthened/formal ので – which means there should have been strong causation, and there was none. Equally importantly, what comes before というか is in no way analogous to something ending in 飛ぶ, so というか wouldn’t work because a parallel isn’t being drawn. Therefore, my translation was wrong.
If I were to make one final change in order to preserve the original sentence’s structure, I think it would be this (in bold):
That ‘because’ should capture the actual meaning of んであって, which I missed. I should have paid more attention, because now that I look at it again, it really does look like an alternative form of ので. (I can’t find a source that specifically discusses のであって as a structure, but my dictionary does have a separate entry for のである that says it indicates that a cause, reason or basis is being stated strongly.)
In any case, thanks a lot, @Myria! I wasn’t too sure how to tackle this myself, and I wanted to get back to something else, so I failed to look for other, more sensible possibilities. The meaning of the sentence fits much better in context now. 
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Thanks both of you! When I read novels I notice that I can lose track of how the various bits and pieces of a long sentence fit together. Do you have any advice for improving this skill?