If you look in the BCCWJ (click the red button all the way at the bottom, then OK) you’ll see many incidences of it with とも and others without.
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Thanks for your answer! That site seems really useful! If I understand correctly it shows example sentences containing the word I search + their source right?
Yeah, it’s a collection of many different written sources. You can also check or uncheck different types (like get rid of all the novels and only search magazines or something).
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Awesome! That will come in handy along the way! It’s maybe a little above my level at the moment, but for searches like this, and in the future this is a great resource! Thanks for sharing! 
Yeah, I think it’s especially useful for quickly seeing if something is common or not. But you have to make sure that similar results aren’t getting mingled in.
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I’m currently studying abroad in Japan, and I went shopping with my host mom for shoes today. I didn’t care what color of shoes I bought, and instead of wanting to say 何でもいいです、I wanted to say any color is okay. What should I have said in this instance? Thanks a lot!
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Do I understand this right?
話している means talking
while the negativ form
話していない means have not talked
Which means that the japanese negativ form of the
present participle is the english past perfect?
Sorry if it sounds strange, I still try to sort it out in my head 
話している can mean “is talking” or “has talked”
話していない can mean “is not talking” or “hasn’t talked”
There was an extended discussion about ている in the “non grammar” topic the other day, but it obviously was mostly about grammar.
I don’t know how often 話している is actually used for the “state of having talked” meaning, but just generally, the ている form can mean both when the verb is an action verb like this, and context is needed to be 100% sure.
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Watching the 国語 videos Leebo linked back in the Mind Blows thread, I’m confused about how the instructor seems to be splitting up phrases (or in any case, 文節).
He teaches that verbs with endings like 書いておくor 走っている should be phrasally split like so:
書いて / おく and 走って / いる. However, compound words like 押し出す and groupings like 走りにくい are not split and count as one phrase.
Is there some grammatical reason for this? I can’t understand everything being said in the videos, am I missing the meaning of 文節?
My guess would be that when you split at the て you are left with two things that are derived from stand alone words. But if you split after the -masu stem, then a thing like 話します would be (はなし / ます) and the -ます could not be analysed in the same way as the other phrases were. The paradigm seemed to be that every phrase was either [stand alone word(inflected)] or [stand alone word(inflected) + joshi].
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Alright, now I’m truly confused.
In a later video (still on how to separate 文章), he has two sentences:
- 私の兄は乳牛を飲まない。
- 菜の花が春の風に揺れている。
Then, he splits the first parts into phrases differently. The first one becomes 私の / 兄は / 乳牛を / 飲まない。The second one, however, turns into 菜の花が / 春の / 風に / 揺れて / いる。
(He doesn’t separate 菜の and 花が.)
I think this might just be a mistake? But I’m not confident enough to be sure of that.
EDIT: He talks about why he does it later in the video, something about how 菜の花 is a single word (I think). Is this the same sort of idea behind why compound words like 押し出す are a single phrase? Is there a good way to tell whether this is the case?
Or does it even matter…? I’m starting to think this isn’t particularly relevant.
Maybe he’s just splitting it into pieces which you can find in the dictionary? Which is to say, you won’t find 走りにくい, but you will find 走る and にくい. And, for that matter, 菜の花. Having not watched the videos for myself, though, I can’t be certain as to why he’s splitting things up at all.
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He didn’t split up 走りにくい, but that seems to be roughly the case. I’m still working through some of his later videos on what constitutes a word, so maybe I’ll get the answer there.
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The important thing in 文節 is that you can only have one 自立語 per 文節. Also, a 付属語 always has to connect to a 自立語 or a 付属語, it can’t come at the start of a 文節.
Those two things determine most of the splitting you might be confused about.
Perhaps this is confusing because we’re not taught that て is particle, but rather a part of the conjugations of the words. Well, grammatically it is actually a particle, not a part of the conjugation. Particles are 付属語, so you can’t have one 文節 that goes [自立語-付属語-自立語].
Something like 押し出す looks like a 押す and 出す separately, but since it has no 付属語 between it and it expresses an idea that is different from 押す and 出す separately it is just one 自立語.
The 菜の花 is a trick question, basically. It’s the proper name of rapeweed. You can’t split it because it’s one word in this case.
What I said about 押し出す also applies to 走りにくい.
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Thanks. That clears things up.
I’ve read a little bit on the ている discussion, but how would I go about translating the following:
薬を飲んで、寝ていました = Took medicine and went to bed.
薬を飲んで、寝ました = Took medicine and went to bed?
寝ていた is the past tense of 寝ている which is just the enduring state of 寝る. So if 寝ている is “to be sleeping” then 寝ていた is “was sleeping”. 寝た is just “to have slept”.
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Well, the theory is all well and good but I still don’t know how to translate it.
薬を飲んで、寝ていました = Took medicine while I was sleeping?
It’s from an exercise from Genki I and it just sounds wrong.
I took medicine and was sleeping.
I think this is some of the confusion. ^^ is not correct. 寝た = slept , 寝ている = have slept (present perfect) or is sleeping (present continuous)
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Not while. Was sleeping after taking the medicine.
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